!Ti 






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4^yi 






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ft P 



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One hundred and forty-two copies printed on 
plate paper and ten copies on Japan paper. 



THE BRADFORD MAP 







^ i 



The Bradford [Map 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

ATTHETIME OF THE GRANTING OF 

THE MONTGOMERIE CHARTER 

A DESCRIPTION THEREOF COMPILED BY 

WILLIAM LORING ANDREWS 

TO ACCOMPANY A FACSIMILE OF AN ACTUAL SURVEY 

MADE BY JAMES LYNE AND PRINTED BY 

WILLIAM BRADFORD IN I 73 I 




NEW YORK 

PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS 

1893 



/vr^H/ 






Copyright, 1893, by William L. Andrews. 



\ Plan ojihc C^iL) of NE^^ 




c^//^\ 



From the Original Map in 



ORK fVom ail aclual Siii \{>^ 




' ...j"*^ - r COMMON 







% 








^-^ 



/ ■ 



'^. 



L^ 



"^v^, 



'^uit ^ 







-*4*^. 



/ J J J 



LLECTION OF W. L. ANDREWS. 



I 



Size of Original, i8 x 225i inches. 



^. 



PREFACE 



T. 



HE primary purpose of the author in issuing this 
monograph is to phice in circulation a hmited num- 
ber of reproductions of a few very rare prints re- 
lating to the early history of New York — a field in 
which the author began his collecting thirty years 
ago, and to which after many diversions he has re- 
turned again and again with renewed interest. 

It is quite conceivable that the most ardent biblio- 
phile might in time grow weary of gathering Aldines 
and Elzevirs, or even Fifteeners and old bindings ; 
but there are certain kinds of books which never 
lose their attraction for those who have once be- 
come enamoured of them. No collector of early 
English poetry was ever known willingly to abandon 
his fascinating pursuit, and it is yet to be recorded 
of an antiquary born within sound of the bells of 



Treface 

Trinity Church that he tired in his quest for memo- 
rials of the city he loved. The fact that the game 
he seeks is one of the most difficult to run to earth 
only serves to incite his thirst and make the chase 
more eager and exciting. 

Although no copies of the Bradford and Du}^kinck 
maps and of the prints of Castle William and the 
Middle Dutch Church beyond those mentioned in 
this book have come to the knowledge of the au- 
thor during many years of careful research, it is of 
course possible (but in his opinion improbable) that 
other copies will hereafter be discovered. There 
have been and will be many false alarms, however, 
especially in relation to the Bradford Map, "original " 
copies of which appear with considerable regularity 
from time to time. 





CONTENTS 



Chapter I 



INTRODUCTION 



PAGE 

'9 



Chapter II 

THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS IN 173 1 



27 



Chapter III 

THE PRINCIPAL LANDMARKS OF THE CITY IN 173, .73 



Chapter IV 



CONCLUSION 



97 




ILLUSTRATIONS 

Artotypes 

View of New York, by William Burgis . . Frontispiece 

'^ The Bradford Map .... opposite page ix 

Castle William IN Boston Harbor . . " "21 

Fort Nieuw Amsterdam .... " 



A 



" 23 

New Amsterdam in 1650 . . . . '' "24 

"^ Allegorical Design .... " " 38 

■^ Wall Street about 1830 .... " " 57 

^ The New York Gazette . . . " ''76 

^ St. Paul's Church . . . . . " "79 

The Middle Dutch Church . . . " "88 

V The Federal Edifice . . . . . " "92 



In the Text 

New Amsterdam .... 
Seal of New Netherland 

xiii 



'9 



Illustrations 

PAGE 

Amsterdam, Holland ....... 23 

Dutch Weight ........ 25 

Fort George, New York ....... 27 

Farm-house on Broadway ...... 29 

Trinity Church as enlarged . . . . . -3° 

Arms of John Harpending ...... 32 

Broad Street and Exchange Place . . . . -33 

Broadway, near Grace Church . . . 35 

Plan of the City in 1789 .... . . 36 

City Hall Park ........ 39 

Public Stage-coach ....... 40 

Beekman Family Coach ...... 43 

Lispenard's Meadows . . . . . . -45 

De Peyster Mansion ....... 46 

Hell Gate ......... 49 

A Fire in New York in 173 i 54 

Assembly Ticket . . . . . . . .61 

A Fine Long Queue ....... 65 

My Lady's Head-dress ....... 67 

Fraunces Tavern ........ 70 

Section of Iron Railing . . . . . . • 7 ' 

Southwest View or the City ..... 73 

Governor's House and Church in the Fort . . -78 

Trinity Church, Second Edifice . . . . 81 

" Old South" Church in Garden Street . . . .82 

xiv 



lUtistrations 



Garden Street Church, Second Edifice . 

Le Temple du Saint Esprit 

Middle Dutch Church as Post-office 

Presbyterian Meeting House in Wall Street 

Stadthuys in Coenties Slip 

Old City Hall in Wall Street . 

Government House .... 

City Hall in the Park .... 

Broadway and Fulton Street 

Royal Exchange ..... 

New York from Governor's Island 

Father Knickerbocker .... 

Flag of Dutch West India Company 



83 
85 
87 
88 
90 

9' 
92 

93 
94 
95 
97 
101 
104 




Still wert thou lovely, whatsoe'er thy name, 
New Amsterdam, New Oratige, or New York, 
IVhether in cradle sleep, on sea-weed laid, 
Or on thy island throne in queenly power arrayed. 

MRS. SIGOURNEY. 




Let us satisfy our eyes 
IVith the Memorials and the things of fame 
That do renown the Citv. 





NEW AMSTERDAM, NOW NEW YORK, 
^s it appeared about the year 1640, while under the Dutch Governvient. 



THE BRADFORD MAP 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTION 



o, 



T all the maps and views illustrating the early 
history of the city of New York, none surpass in 
interest or exceed in rarity the "Survey" made by 
James Lyne, and printed and published by William 
Bradford in 1731. Only two impressions from the 
original copperplate, so far as known, exist. One. 
the gift of John Pintard in 1807 to the institution 
of which he was one of the founders, is in the collec- 
tion of the New York Historical Society. This copy, 
unfortunately, is not in good condition. It was 
mounted on a stretcher and covered with a heavy 



The 'Bradford (Map 

coat of varnish many years ago, and the paper, which 
is of an inferior quality, is cracked and discolored. 
The other impression is in a better state of preserva- 
tion. It may be called literally an uncut copy of the 
Map, as the rough edges of the sheet upon which it 
was printed remain intact. The only marks that the 
flight of time has left upon it are one or twot small 
perforations and some breaks in the folds of the paper, 
but they have been skilfully repaired by that adept in 
the art of restoring decayed and injured prints, George 
Trent. In every other respect it is in the same con- 
dition as when it came from the rude, old-fashioned 
press of William Bradford. 

In this piece of copperplate engraving no feature is 
lacking to render it an acquisition of the first impor- 
tance to every collector of Americana. It is one of 
the earliest examples of the art of engraving executed 
in New York, and without doubt it is the first map 
printed here; it relates to the chief city on the con- 
tinent, and it is of the utmost rarity. What more 
could the most fastidious collector demand ? 

This Map, the print of the Middle Dutch Church 
engraved by William Burgis at about the same period, 
the view of " t' Fort nieuw Amfterdam op de Man- 
hatans" which is found in the " Befchrijvinghe Van 
Virginia," etc., published in Amsterdam in 1 651, and 
the view of "Nieuw Amsterdam" in Adriaen vander 
Donck's " Nieuw-Nederlant," 1656, are the corner- 
stones of a collection of prints relating to New York 




From the Original Print in the Collection of W. L. Andrews. 



The Bradford (Map 

history. The books containing the two Jast named 
prints are still occasionally to be found, but the others 
were separate engravings, and consequently were 
more exposed to the hap and hazard of time. Their 
all but total disappearance is therefore not so much a 
matter of surprise.* 

The Bradford Map and the Middle Dutch Church 
print were stumbled upon by the writer thirty years 
ago in a book-hunting tour which he has ever since 
regarded as an exceptionally successful one. They 
were found preserved in an old scrap-book, which 
contained in addition a " View of Castle William by 
Boston in New England," a contemporaneous print 
of equal if not greater rarity. All three are among 
the very earliest specimens of American copperplate 
engraving. Prints of the Revolutionary epoch from 
the hands of our own engravers have become of in- 
frequent occurrence, but these prints antedate them 

* In 1755, a map of New York city was published by Gerardus 
Duyckinck, which Du Simitiere, writing in 1768, asserts to be the 
Bradford Map with additions and alterations; and its general ap- 
pearance certainly gives color to this statement, if it be true 
that Duyckinck obtained possession of the Bradford plate, pieced 
it, and reengraved portions of it, the scarcity of the impressions 
from the original engraving is readily explained. Curiously 
enough, according to Du Simitiere, the Duyckinck map itself al- 
most immediately after its publication became exceedingly difficult 
to obtain. The only copy now known to exist is the one in the 
New York Historical Society, and it certainly is a curious piece 
of patchwork. 



The "Bradford {Map 




by half a century. It was by a narrow chance that 
these interesting and historically important pictorial 
records of our city escaped complete destruction. 

In all these years no third copy of the Map or 
of the Burgis print and no duplicate of the View 

of Castle William have 
been brought to »light. 
The second impression 
of the engraving of the 
Dutch Church, from 
which reduced copies 
were made for Valen- 
tine's History of New 
York and other publica- 
tions, is or was in the 

SEAL OF NEW NhTHtRLAND, 1623. .^^^^„^^;^„ ^C D \JI 

^ possession of a Rev. Mr. 
Strong, of Newtown, Long Island. No reproduction 
the size of the original appears to have been made. 

The survey of James Lyne presents a view of New 
York as it appeared after little more than a century 
of growth ; for. although the river which bears the 
name of Hudson was explored by its discoverer in 
1609. and a small trading-post had been erected at 
Fort Nassau on Castle Island, near Albany, in 1614. 
it was not until the year 1626* that a colony was 
permanently established on Manhattan Island under 
the auspices of the Dutch West India Company. On 

♦The city was not incorporated under the name of New Amster- 
dam until 1652 ; it was laid out in streets in 1656. 
22 




Z !£ 



U 



The "Bradford {Map 

May 6 of that year the first real-estate transaction on 
the Island of Manhattan, and one involving the 
largest transfer of property ever made, was con- 
summated. Governor Peter Minuit, representing the 
company, purchased for "their account and risk " the 
entire island from its aboriginal owners, giving in ex- 
change for this wide domain a quantity of beads, 




THE CITY OF AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND. 

buttons, and other trinkets valued at sixty gulden 
($24). The amount of land secured for this paltry 
sum was estimated by Minuit at 22,000 acres. 

The unsophisticated red men appear to have been 
mightily contented with their share in this transac- 
tion. There still remained in their undisputed con- 
trol a continent of primeval forest, the depths of 
which they had but partially explored. Ignorant and 



Tbe "Bradford OAap 

careless of the value or extent of their possessions, 
thev willingly bartered away their woods and streams 
for a few trumper\'^ articles of personal adornment. 
It mattered not to them if they pitched their wig- 
wams and lighted their council-fires a few steps 
nearer to the setting sun. There was land enough 
and to spare for the pale-face, especially as the kidians 
believed that, while parting with the soil, they re- 
tained the right to fish and hunt upon it. This 
belief on their part led later to serious results. 

The wilv Dutch governor must have laughed in his 
sleeve as he clinched this one-sided bargain with a 
flagon of the ' • mad waters " — that is to say. good old 
Dutch schnapps — which tradition declares he found 
to be a potent factor in his dealings with the Indians 
and of special service in expediting this impor- 
tant negotiation. The ver\' name of the island is a 
perpetual reminder of the unrestrained conviviality of 
this occasion. Manhattan — /. e.. Manahachtanienks, 
a reveling name importing ■' the place where they all 
got drunk " — was then and there bestowed upon it by 
the Indians in commemoration of this great meeting. 

The directors of the Dutch West India Company 
were not uninformed as to the value of their proposed 
purchase. Hendrick Hudson, on his return to Holland 
seventeen years before, had reported that he found it 
*•' a verv" good land to live in and a pleasant land to 
see/' and the politic and energetic Minuit was de- 
spatched to secure possession of this desirable domain 



o 


H 


?s 


m 




7^ 


o 


n 


z 


> 


CD 


s 


O 






The Bradford O^ap 



on the best terms he could negotiate. There is no 
reason to believe that the directors ever complained 
that he paid an 
exorbitant price 
for the rocks, 
swamps, and 
pools of Manna- 
hatta. During 
the eight years 
following, ac- 
cording to the 
returns made to 
Holland by the 
Company, they 
received from the 
colony more than 
50,000 beaver- 
and 6000 otter- 
skins of the value 
of over 525,000 

gulden. If purchased from the Indians, as Irving 
assures us they were, by Dutch weight, the Dutch- 
man's hand being deemed the equivalent of one 
pound and his foot of two, there must have been 
a considerable profit in the business they transacted 
in furs. Nevertheless, through official mismanage- 
ment of the affairs of the province, the stockholders 
of the Company found themselves in the long run 
decidedly out of pocket. 




DUTCH WEIGHT. 



Snug houses and neat stoops, where friends would often meet, 

The men with pipes, cock'd hats, ajid fine long queues. 

The girls with white short gowns, stuff petticoats, and high-heel shoes, 

And knitting at the side and fingers going, 

And now and then a tender fiance bestowing. 





SOUTH-WEST VIEW OF FORT GEORGE, WITH THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 

CHAPTER II 

THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS IN 1 73 1 

VyE are surprised to find as we unfold our Map 
that the city of New York so late as 1731 was 
confined within such narrow limits, and that so few 
were the steps that had as yet been taken in that 
triumphant march of material progress which has 
brought the metropolis of the New World to its 
present pinnacle of power and greatness. It was, 
indeed, a day of small things, a town of less than 
1500 houses and 9000 inhabitants, on the outskirts 
of which the echo of the Indian's warwhoop had 



The Bradford {Map 

hardly yet died away. Broadway, for years the pride 
of every Knickerbocker's heart until its glory was 
overshadowed and its prestige eclipsed by that of 
Fifth Avenue, was one hundred and sixty years ago a 
common country road. In the place of lofty ware- 
houses filled with costly merchandise, high banks of 
clay skirted its sides. Farm-houses were S(^attered 
here and there along its length, and on that portion 
of it where St. Paul's Church now stands fields of 
wheat were growing in rank luxuriance.* 

Unlike the Quaker City of Philadelphia, laid out 
in the beginning with rectangular streets crossing 
each other at prescribed distances with mathematical 
precision, the streets of New York were left largely 

*Census of New York City and County, November 2d, 1731. 

Henry Beekmaii, Sheriff. 

White males, above ten years, 2628 



" females, " 

" males, under 

" females, " 

Black males, above 

" females, " 

" males, under 

" females, " 



2250 
1143 
1024 

599 
607 
186 
'85 
8622 



Total population of the entire province : 

Whites, 50,242 

Blacks, 7,202 

57,444 



The "Bradford Olap 



to their own devices. Cow-patiis and lovers' walks 
are responsible for the location and devious windings 
of some, while others "meandered of their own 
sweet will in green suburban groves," or followed 
lazily the indentations of the shore. Pearl Street (then 
called Queen, in _ 

honor of Queen 
Anne) was the 
first roadway 
above the water- 
line on the East 
River, and no 
street running 
north and south 
except a section 
of Church had as 
yet been laid out 
west of Broad- 
way. From Old Wind-mill Lane, just above Crown 
Street, now Liberty, the green fields of the " King's 
Farm "* stretched in an unbroken expanse north- 
ward and westward to the banks of the Hudson, 
and from the steps of old Trinity Church no build- 
ing obstructed the delightful view of the "Great 
River "t flowing clear and sparkling in the sunshine, 
its waters unvexed by the furrow of any keel save 

* Trinity Ciiurch property, granted to the corporation in 1705 
by Lord Cornbury, who reserved a quit-rent of three shillings, 
f Groote Rieviere de Montaines. 

29 




FARM-HOUSE ON BROADWAY. 



The "Bradford ^ap 




that of an occasional leisurely-going clump-built 

Albany sloop. 

Wandering through the streets of New York in 

173 1 , names unfamiliar to its present denizens would 

have met the way- 
farer's eye at every 
turn. The Efiglish 
conquerors of the city 
had almost entirely 
obliterated the Dutch 
street nomenclature, 
and from time to 
time thereafter they 
altered names to suit 
dynastic changes in 
the mother country. 
The close of the 
Revolutionary War, 
with its successful 
abolishment of kingly 
rule, speedily brought 
about a general re- 
christening of every 
street in the name 

of which there was any suggestion of royalty. 
Pearl Street (Paerl Straat), the crooked street of 

New York, which grievously perplexes the pedestrian 

by beginning and ending on Broadway, was variously 

known in 1657 ^^ the Smiths' Valley, the Hoogh 




TRINITY CHURCH AS ENLARGED, I 737. 



The "Bradford (Map 

Straat, the Waal (or sheet piled) Street, and the Wa- 
terside. In 1 69 1 the lower portion was called Dock 
Street. Some years later that part above Hanover 
Square became known as Queen Street, a title it re- 
tained as late as 1789. But the present Cedar Street 
also bore that name, and to avoid confusion these 
thoroughfares were called respectively Great Queen 
Street and Little Queen Street. An open space on 
Pearl Street in the block bounded by Whitehall, 
Moore, and Water Streets was in early days known as 
the Strand, and was used as a market-place or stand 
for country wagons. The first church built on Man- 
hattan Island, erected in 1633,* was a plain frame 
building on the north side of Pearl Street, between 
Broad Street and Old Slip. In 1642 this old kirk was 
abandoned as a place of worship, and devoted to 
business purposes. 

The upper part of William Street was named after 
William Beekman. From Maiden Lane to Pearl Street 
it was called Smith Street. In olden days the lower 
part was known as Burger's Path, and later as The 
Glassmakers' Street. 

John Harpending, the shoemaker, who donated the 
land (a part of the "Shoemaker's Pasture") upon 
which stood the Dutch Church at the corner of Fulton 
and William streets, gave the name to John Street. 

♦ For a number of years previously religious meetings had been held 
in a loft above the first horse mill erected on the island. 



The "Bradford O^ap 




The descent from William Street to Pearl was known 
as Golden Hill. 

Cliff Street ran through Vandercliff's orchard. On 
the Bradford Map his name is given to a portion of 

the present Gold Street, 
while the appellation of 
Clif/ Street is appVed to 
the street next to the 
eastward, which is the 
present Cliff Street. Cliff 
Street intersected Golden 
Hill, and this fact, accord- 
ing to the annalist Wat- 
son, gave rise to its 
name, "along the cliff." 
Beekman Slip, Fair Street, Division Street, and Par- 
tition Street were the various names by which Fulton 
Street was known prior to 1816. 

Maiden Lane* was called in Dutch " t'Maadge 
Paatge," or the Maiden's Path; and a quiet, secluded 
road leading through the farm of Colonel Rutgers, 
much frequented by romantically disposed couples, 
was known as Love Lane. Phlegmatic as were those 
old Dutch burghers, they were by no means devoid 
of sentiment. 

Nassau Street was at first known only by the gas- 
tronomical designation of " the road that leads by the 



ARMS OF JOHN HARPENDING. 



* The first settlers upon Maiden Lane were ship-carpenters. 

32 



The 'Bradford {Map 



pie-woman's to the City Commons." In. 1731 the 
upper part was called Kip Street. 

Wall Street ("Lang de Wal") marks the original 
line of the city's palisades, which were erected for de- 
fense against foes from neighboring colonies as well 
as from incursions by the Indians ; hence its name, 
which has not 
been changed 
since the year 
1700. Its old 
Dutch title was 
the " Cingel." or 
ramparts, and 
"t'Schaape Way- 
tie," or the pub- 
lic sheep-walk, 
extended from it 
towards the pres- 
ent Exchange Place. It is currently reported that 
lambs are still to be seen browsing in this vicinity, 
and that they frequently return home badly fleeced. 

At the foot of Wall^ Street on the East River stood 
the Slave Market. The average price for an able- 
bodied negro, when the market was not overstocked 
by too frequent arrivals from the coast of Guinea, 
was $125. Human flesh was a cheap commodity in 
New York in 1731 . 

Garden Street, previously known as Verleitenberg 
(corrupted to Flattenbarrack) Street, is now Exchange 




EAST SIDE OF BROAD STREET, CORNER OF 
EXCHANGE PLACE, IN 1 780. 



The 'Bradford 3s/lap 

Place. The portion of it lying on the declivity be- 
tween Broadway and Broad Street was in winter a 
famous coasting-place for the youth of the town. 
In the spring and summer months the corner of 
Exchange Place and Broad Street was frequented by 
the Indians, who there manufiictured and exposed for 
sale basket work, the material for which they had 
brought in their canoes from the interior. 

Whitehall Street derives its name from a large 
house built by Governor Thomas Dongan, and named 
Whitehall after the London palace of the kings of 
England from Henry Vlll. to William III. In 1659 
this street was known as " t'Marckvelt Steegie," or 
path to the Marketfield (the present Bowling Green). 
The ruins of Dongan's house could be seen on the 
river front as late as 1769. They are included in the 
section of the long panoramic view of New-York by 
Burgis which is reproduced in this book. 

Broad Street, built on the line of a creek or inlet 
which extended up as far as Wall Street, was in 
1657 called the " HeerenGracht"(the principal canal), 
and also the '* Prince Gracht." Bridge Street (Brugh 
Straat) crossed it by a bridge. State Street is said to 
have been the first street in the city paved with stone. 
In most of the early streets the gutter, or " kennel," 
ran through the center. 

Not even the principal thoroughfare of the city has 
escaped mutation in its name, having been called the 
Breedweg, the Heere Straat, the Great Highway, the 



The "Bradford OViap 




BROADWAY, NEAR GRACE CHURCH, I 828. 



Broad Waggon Way, Great George Street, and the 
Middle Road; but since the year 1674 that part of 
it below Vesey Street has remained in undisturbed 
enjoyment of its present title. Above Vesey Street 
it was so late as 
1 794* called Great 
George Street. In 
1707 it was first 
paved, from Trin- 
ity Church to 
Maiden Lane. 

The Park, pro- 
bably the first 
recognized public 
property on the island, has been known at various 
periods as the Vlackte, or Flat, the Plains, the Com- 
mons, and the Fields. It was ceded to the corpo- 
ration of the city of New York in 1686 by Governor 
Dongan, and has remained without interruption in 
possession of the city government from that date to 
the present time. In 1731 it was a neglected waste 
covered with brush and underwood. It remained 
uninclosed from the public highway for many years, 
and was used with adjacent unoccupied lands prin- 
cipally as pasturage for the cows of the townspeople. 
Summoned in the early morning by the blast of a 
horn at the garden gate, the cattle were collected by 

*A number of changes in the names of streets was ordered 

in this year. 

35 



The Bradford (Map 

the public cowherd and driven to the Commons, 
guarded through the day, and returned to their owners 
at nightfall. Portions of the Park and its vicinity were 
also used for public executions. In 1 691 Jacob Leisler 
here ended his life on the scaffold, and in the imme- 
diate neighborhood took place the wholesale burnings 
and hangings of the unfortunate creatures implicated 
in the Negro Plot of 1 74 1 . David Grim's map of 1 742 
marks some low-lying ground near the corner of 
Pearl and Chambers Streets as the location where the 
stakes were set up and this tragedy enacted ; the 
gibbet was erected a little further to the north. Grim 
states that he well remembered hearing the shrieks 
and cries of the tortured wretches. 

After the vacant space in front of the Fort was 
inclosed and laid out as the Bowling Green, the 
Commons became the favorite, and in fact the only 
convenient, spot in the city for bonfires, illuminations, 
military exercises, and popular demonstrations of all 
kinds. It also served the inhabitants as a dumping- 
ground for refuse, as well as a source of supply of 
earth and sod, the constant removal of which it was 
found necessary in 1731 to prohibit by a city or- 
dinance forbidding the digging of any holes on the 
Commons, or the carrying away of "earth, mould, 
sod, or turf." 

The Bowling Green does not appear on the Brad- 
ford Map, as it was not laid out until March, 1733, 
when by a city ordinance it was "Resolved, that this 



The "Bradford DAap 

Corporation will lease a piece of ground lying at the 
lower end of Broadway fronting to the Fort, to some 
of the inhabitants of the said Broadway in order to be 
inclosed to make a bowling green thereof, with walks 
therein for the beauty and ornament of said streets, 
as well as for the recreation and delight of the inhab- 
itants of the City, leaving the street on eacli side 
thereof fifty feet in breadth, under such covenants 
and restrictions as to the court shall seem expedient." 
In the succeeding month the Mayor, Aldermen Van 
Gelde and Philipse, and Mr. De Peyster, or any 
three of them, were appointed a committee to lay 
out the ground, and the same was leased to Mr. 
John Chambers. Mr, Peter Bayard, and Mr. Peter 
Jay for the term of eleven years for the use afore- 
said, and not otherwise, under the annual rent of a 
peppercorn. 

To the east of the Park lay the highway to Boston 
and Albany by way of Kingsbridge — the only outlet 
from the city to the north. Over this road ran once 
a week from March to December, and fortnightly in 
winter (until Lady Day), a post making the journey 
to Boston in a week — or two weeks, according to the 
weather and the condition of the road. 

The post was carried to Albany in winter on horse- 
back or on foot. New York was in similar frequent 
and rapid communication with Philadelphia, but in 
the quarter of a century which followed the facilities 
for intercourse between these cities increased so much 




Desigjud and drawn by Charles Buxton, M. D. Tiebout, sculp. 

From the Original Engraving in the Collection of W. L. Andrews. 



The "Bradford CMap 

that in the year 1755 we read of the establishment 
of a bi-weekly post, which arrived in Philadelphia at 
noon on the third day after leaving New York, wind 
and weather permitting. This appears to have met 
all the postal and traveling demands of the public 
until 1774, when an opposition to the ''old slow- 




THE CITY HALL PARK ABOUT 1 83 I. 

coach," as it had come to be contemptuously styled, 
was started with a flaming advertisement of ''good 
waggons and seats on springs." The new convey- 
ance was dubbed the " Flying Machine," and its pro- 
moters promised that it should cover the distance 
between the two cities in the unprecedented time of 
two days. With what an amount of incredulity would 
they have received a prophecy that in 1892 two hours 
would suffice for the journey ! 



The "Bradford DAap 

So late as 1807, as will be seen by the schedule 
below, it was a day's journey from New York to 
Philadelphia, unless the traveler patronized the Mail 
Coach, which went rattling through at the spanking 
gait of six miles an hour. 




A PUBLIC STAGE-COACH. 



STAGES FROM NEW YORK TO PHILADELPHIA 



Stages 



Mail Stage 

Mail Pilot 

Industry 

Diligence 

Commercial 

Swift-Sure 



Starts at 



i past 1 2 daily except Sunday 
do do 

8 A. M. do 

8 A. M. do 

10 A. M. do 

10 A. M. do 



Arrives 



4 next morning 

do 
early next day 

do 
next day afternoon 

do 



Fare 



14 lb. of Baggage allowed gratis in all the above stages. 

150 lb. will be rated as a passenger. 

Baggage in the Swift-Sure insured at i per cent. 



The "Bradford (Map 

A road from the Fresh Water to Harlem was 
provided by the Dutch in 1658 and laid out 
anew in 1671, but seven years later it is recorded 
that a traveler from New York bound for this settle- 
ment was compelled to leave the Bouwerie and 
proceed by trail through the woods. In the year 
1703 an attempt was made to improve the continua- 
tion of this road from about 109th Street to Kings- 
bridge. Until the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury this was the only road that crossed the Harlem 
River, branching out just beyond it into the roads 
leading to Boston and Albany. 

It is evident that neither this one main road nor the 
few by-roads and leafy lanes that intersected it were 
even in 1731 cared for in the best manner, and they 
could have afforded but little opportunity for plea- 
sure-driving. A private coach was indeed more of 
a luxury than a private steam-yacht is to-day, and 
in fact as little of a necessity. 

With one exception — that of Colonel William 
Smith, Governor of Tangiers, who brought his car- 
riage to New York in 1686 — no coach but that of 
the colonial governor had appeared in the streets of 
New York prior to the year 1700. A two-wheel 
chaise for one horse was the most fashionable vehi- 
cle, and one which continued in general use up to the 
time of the Revolution. There was no coach builder 
in the city until the year 1750, when James Hal- 
lett swung out his sign of the Golden Wheel on 



The 'Bradford {Map 

Golden Hill, and notified the town that he was pre- 
pared to manufacture chaise, chair, and kittereen 
boxes at most reasonable rates and with all expedi- 
tion. The chair referred to was not a sedan-chair, 
but simply a small chaise without any hood. What 
a " kittereen " was we have been unable to discover. 
The first hackney coach was advertised in 1(^96 by 
John Clap, who kept a tavern in the Bowery, near 
9th Street. 

The common mode of travel was on horseback, 
the lady mounted on a pillion or padded cushion 
fixed behind the saddle of her cavalier or servant, 
upon whose support she was therefore dependent. 
This fashion was a favorite one with the youthful 
portion of the population, and considered of great 
assistance in match-making. The horses, fat and 
slow-gaited, rarely went off a walk, and required 
little attention on the part of the rider, who was thus 
left free to devote himself assiduously to the prosecu- 
tion of an ajfaire de caciir if so inclined. 

The coach, or chariot, as it was called, of the last 
century was an unwieldy structure, if we may judge 
from the one represented in Burgis's engraving of 
the Middle Dutch Church. It is presumably that of 
Rip van Dam. to whom the plate is inscribed. It is 
a one-seated vehicle hung on leathern straps. The 
negro coachman is clad in the cocked hat and bright 
parti-colored livery of the day, and the footman, of 
the same ebony hue, is in equally gorgeous array. 

42 



The Bradford {Map 

When the President of his Majesty's Council for the 
Province of New York sallied forth, it was' with no 
inconsiderable amount of state, albeit with some dis- 
comfort, in his cumbersome vehicle that rumbled and 
jolted over the rough cobblestone pavements of the 
town. In this print Nassau Street is seen to be 




THE BEEKMAN FAMILY COACH. 



paved with cobblestones. Liberty Street still re- 
mained a natural country road. 

"The Kolck, or Kalchhook, signifying in Dutch the 
shell point, the Collect, or Fresh Water Pond, was 
the most striking geographical feature of the lower 
part of the island. In its natural state it was a 
beautiful lake of about ten acres in extent, sup- 
posed to be of great depth, but in reality not over 
fifty feet in its deepest part. Fed by numerous 
springs, its water was of unusual purity, and fur- 



The "Bradford OAap 

nished the inhabitants with an ample supply for all 
domestic purposes. The famous 'tea-water' pump 
was erected over one of the springs whence the 
pond received its crystal waters. It was situated in a 
dell or hollow near the present junction of Chatham 
and Roosevelt Streets." The bridge which spanned 
a brook at this point, and another some three »miles 
farther north, were the renowned " kissing bridges," 
at which it was a time-honored custom for the beaux 
to levy toll of their fair companions when returning 
from a country excursion. 

At this time the pond abounded in fish, and it was 
evidently a favorite resort of the pot-hunter as well 
as of the true disciple of gentle Izaak Walton. In 
1734 it was found necessary to promulgate a city 
ordinance prohibiting netting in the Fresh Water, 
or the taking of any fish except by angling with a 
hook and line, under a penalty of twenty shillings 
for each offense. This is doubtless the first law 
for the preservation of fish enacted in the State of 
New York. 

The natural outlet of the pond was through a 
brook called "Old Wreck Brook." which ran through 
Wolfert's Meadows to the East River. Between 
the pond and the North River a marsh extended, 
known as Lispenard's Meadows, through which also 
ran streams from the pond. On these meadows, in 
the vicinity of the present Greenwich street, stood 
Lispenard's house and brewery. 



The 'Bradford Map 

About the year 1805 the entire Collect Pond was 
filled in, after a long debate as to whether it should 
not be left with a canal running through it. Perhaps 
there still lingered in the community the same differ- 




LISPENARd's meadows, canal street and HUDSON RIVER. 
From original draiving by Alexander Anderson. 

ences of opinion that had formerly led to the famous 
dispute chronicled by Washington Irving between 
Mynheers Tenbroek and Hardenbrook about the plan 
of New Amsterdam — the one insisting that they 
should run out docks and wharves, and the other 
that it should be cut up and intersected by canals, 
after the manner of Old Amsterdam. The grim and 
gloomy prison-house well named the Tombs now 
occupies a portion of this made ground, and probably 
marks about the center of the Fresh Water. 

The principal landmarks of the town besides Fort 



7he 'Bradford {Map 



George and the buildings it inclosed, and the City Hall 
in Wall Street, were the church buildings, notably 
the Old South Dutch Church in Garden Street, Trin- 
ity Church on Broadway, the Huguenot Church 

in Pine Street, 
and the Middle 
or New Dutch 
Church on the 
corner of Nas- 
sau and Liberty 
Streets, then be- 
ing completed. 
The quaint bel- 
fry-crowned or 
pointed steeples 
of these sacred 
edifices towered 
protectinglyover 
the lowly roofs of the inhabitants, and their glisten- 
ing gilt weathercocks kept the populace constantly 
informed as to the quarter of the wind ; but of town 
clocks there were none except the one in the City 
Hall, the gift of Etienne De Lancey, and but a few 
shagreen-cased turtle-shell or pinchbeck watches were 
to be found in the pockets of the people. Time was 
not quite so much a matter of money then as it is 
no\y» 'ind the community was not so careful to note 
the passing hours. The shadow on the door-step 
was a sufficiently accurate timepiece for all practical 




THE DE PEYSTER MANSION. 



The "Bradford OAap 

purposes; — the day's task was not measured by an 
eight- or ten-hour rule, but by the rising "and going 
down of the sun. 

The houses were two to three stories in height 
besides the attic ; those remaining of the Dutch period 
presented their gable-ends to the street. These ga- 
bles tapered to the top by a succession of steps, and 
the pinnacle was frequently surmounted, like the 
church spires, with a weathercock. The town, in 
fact, bristled with weathercocks. These picturesque 
features of the city and their accompaniments — 
double doors with bull's-eye lights and ''stoopes" 
with cozy side-seats — were nearly all swept away 
in the great fire of 1776. 

The English style of domestic architecture was of 
extreme simplicity in design and finish, its only char- 
acteristic feature being an "outlook" on the roof, 
which was either shingled or covered with slate. 
The materials used in construction were wood, stone, 
and brick. The latter, of a golden hue, are sup- 
posed to have been imported at first from Holland 
and England ; but the industry of brick-making was 
at a very early date established in the colony. In 
1742 there were six brick-kilns in operation on the 
Commons. Neighboring forests yielded an abun- 
dance of fine oak and other timber; good building- 
stone was readily obtainable on the island itself, and 
lime could be manuflictured.from oyster- and clam- 
shells. The bay of New York abounded in oyster- 



The 'Bradford {Map 

beds, which supplied the poorer portion of the popu- 
lation with the greater part of their means of subsis- 
tence for six months in the year. The beds were in 
view of the city, and from the Battery hundreds of 
small boats could be seen at a time gathering the 
succulent bivalves. The value of this product was 
computed to amount to ^^ 10,000 or jQ\2, 00^ per 
annum. 

New York at this period gave slight promise of the 
great maritime city it was destined to become. Only 
here and there a sail dotted the beautiful bay now 
thronged with vessels bearing the flags of all nations. 
In 1730 but 211 vessels of all descriptions entered 
the port of New York, and only 222 cleared from it 
during that year. The docking facilities, although 
very limited, had been much improved since the 
occupation by the English, and it will be seen by the 
Bradford Map that the wharves extended from White- 
hall Street to Beekman on the East River, while on 
the North River there were four docks in the neigh- 
borhood of Cortlandt Street for the accommodation of 
the Hudson River trade.* Large sea-going vessels 
anchored in the stream, and loaded and discharged 
their cargoes by means of scows and small boats. 

*The reason assigned for the fact that the East Side was docked 
out and better built up than the West Side, was that winter fresh- 
ets sometimes filled the Hudson River with ice. The first wharf 
in the city was built, it is said, by Daniel Litschoe, a tavern- 
keeper on the Strand, foot of Broad Street. 



The "Bradford OAap 

"Down East" and up the Hudson, on their seven 
days' or longer voyage to Albany, sailed a gallant lit- 
tle fleet of sloops, commanded by skippers who were 
worthy successors of their hardy Dutch progenitors, 
the "yacht" sailors, Goovert Lockermans, Jan Peeck, 
and Isaac Kip. Skilfully they navigated the danger- 
ous whirlpools of the Helle Gat or the perilous 




EAST VIEW OF HELL GATE, IN THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK. 

waters of the Tappan Zee, and braved the thunders 
of Storm King and Cro' Nest ; when the tide did 
not serve, going ashore for a glass of buttermilk or 
cider and a chat with the farmers, and religiously, 
in strict observance of the old Dutch laws of naviga- 
tion, dropping anchor at sundown. 

From up the river these itinerant traders brought 
down furs and country produce ; from Yankeedom 
whatnots — mayhap wooden bowls, and nutmegs, 



The 'Bradford {Map 

and counterfeit wampum currency.* These vessels 
also carried passengers, and their departure was the 
occasion of more affecting scenes than are now wit- 
nessed on the dock of an outgoing transatlantic 
steamer. The prospective voyage was a lengthier 
one, and deemed quite as hazardous, and a not un- 
usual preliminary before embarking on it was ^he ex- 
ecution of a last will and testament. 

There were boats called ketches trading with Vir- 
ginia, and returning with cargoes of the fragrant pro- 
duct of the Old Dominion. These coastwise traders 
were small craft, and even those engaged in the 
longer and rougher voyages to the West Indies ap- 
pear to have been without exception in the category 
of sloops. An important part of the commerce of 
New York was with those Windward Islands. From 
the Barbadoes were brought large quantities of rum, 
sugar, and molasses ; cotton was imported from 
St. Thomas and Surinam, lime-juice and Nicaragua 
wood from Cura^oa, and logwood from the Bay of 
Honduras. Exports to the West Indies consisted of 
pork, staves, flour, and general country produce, 
including horses and sheep. Oysters, usually pickled, 

♦Wampum, or white money, was made from the inside of 
the shell of the quahaug, or hard clam, and was perforated and 
strung together. Four beads for a stuyver, or two for a cent, 
passed as currency with the Indians for many hundred miles to 
the westward as well as in the settlements on the coast. This 
money was counterfeited in porcelain. 

50 



The Bradford O^ap 

were a current article of export; there. is a legend, 
perhaps unworthy of belief, that quantities of fried 
oysters were shipped in the firkins of fresh country 
butter sent to the planters. 

Arrivals from England occurred generally in the 
spring and fall months, and were events of great in- 
terest and importance. Ships from London were 
from four to six weeks, or even more, upon the pas- 
sage. They came laden with all kinds of manufac- 
tured articles, household furniture, wearing apparel, 
woolen and cotton goods,* Turkey carpets, and — all 
the latest news and fashions. Outward cargoes were 
composed of naval stores, tar, pitch, and turpentine, 
whale-fins, oil, and other products of this country, 
and of sugar, cotton, and logwood imported from 
the West Indies. t 

In the files of the New York Gazette for this period 
but three clearances of vessels for Holland appear, 
and commerce with the country which founded the 
colony had obviously fallen into decay. Chief Jus- 
tice Smith, however, writing some years later, states 
that a considerable trade with Hamburg and Holland 
still existed in duck, checkered linen, oznabrigs, 
cordage, and tea. This latter item was, according 

* For purposes of barter with the hidians, as well as for the 
colonists' own consumption. 

t In 1728 the imports from Great Britain are stated to have 
been of the value of ^2 1 ,005 12s. i id. , and the exports ^^78, 561 
6s. 4d. 

51 



The 'Bradford {Map 

to that historian, a very important one, as "our 
people both in town and country have shamefully 
gone into the habit of tea drinking." 

There is one other branch of the commerce of the 
city to which reference should be made — the im- 
portation of slaves from the coast of Africa : a busi- 
ness considered strictly legitimate, if not eminently 
respectable, and one in which not a small proportion 
of the shipping interest was at times very profitably 
employed. Occasionally it appears to have suffered 
from over-importation. 

"Slavery was at this time an established institution 
in the colony, and the number of slaves in a house- 
hold constituted a peculiar mark of easy circumstances 
in their proprietor. The wealthier classes were sur- 
rounded and served by a multitude of them, and 
every domestic establishment was provided with one 
or more. The people of New York, however, lived 
in fear of the ignorant and in many respects debased 
population they held in bondage, and which com- 
posed about one sixth of the community." The laws 
relating to negroes and slaves were extremely rigid. 
No slave above fourteen years of age was allowed to 
be in the streets south of the Fresh Water above an 
hour after sunset, and if so found without a lantern 
and lighted candle, and not in the company of his 
master or owner, the slave might be arrested and 
whipped and the master fined. Slaves were also 
punished by whipping for the slightest disorderly con- 

S2 



The Bradford <C\4ap 

duct. This severity led, a few years later, to one of 
the most tragic occurrences in the early history of the 
city. Upon evidence, which was afterward believed 
to be grossly exaggerated, of a concerted plan to de- 
stroy the town by fire and massacre the inhabitants, 
I 54 negroes and 20 white persons were arrested and 
committed to prison. Of the negroes charged with 
this conspiracy, 14 were burned alive at the stake, 
18 hanged, and 71 transported. Four of the white 
persons implicated, one a Catholic priest named Ury, 
were also executed. So great was the prejudice 
against the negroes on this occasion that not a single 
lawyer would appear in court in their defense. No 
more somber page darkens the annals of the city of 
New York than the one which records the history 
of the Negro Plot. Reason appears to have been de- 
throned and the dictates of humanity cast aside in 
the momentary terror which seized upon the town. 
The city in 1731 had begun to assume the ap- 
pearance and take to itself the air of a municipality. 
Some of the streets were paved and were occasion- 
ally cleaned.* It was lighted in a desultory sort of 
way, and it had a night police force on duty for a 
portion of the year. 

* Once a week the inhabitants were obliged by law to sweep 
the dirt in heaps before their respective premises, that it might 
be removed the following day by the city cartmen, who were 
paid for this service by the property-owners. Broad Street was 
at this time the only one cleaned at the public expense, 

53 



The Bradford 0\iap 

The city watch consisted of four men, sometimes 
called bellmen, or " kloppermannen." They were 
employed only from the ist of November to the 
23th of March, and their stipend was at the most but 
£\^ each per annum, out of which they supplied 
their own fire and light ; the lantern, bell, and hour- 




A FIRE IN NEW YORK IN 1 73 I . 
From the heading 0/ a Fireman's Certificate. 

glass which they carried were provided by the city. 
The cost of the entire force was thus at the highest 
only £^0 per annum, and this sum was reduced at 
times as low as ^36, or £c) per man. The average 
from 1700 to 1740 was ^44 per annum. 

If a fire broke out at night the nearest watchman 
would give an alarm with his rattle and knock at the 
doors of houses in the vicinity, crying, *' Throw out 



The 'Bradford DAap 

your buckets." Once an hour through, the night, 
with loud clattering of their kloppers, they cried out 
the time and the state of the weather. It is not to 
be imagined that this periodical racket disturbed the 
profound slumbers of the inhabitants, but rather that 
through long custom it had become an accompani- 
ment of the night as essential to their repose as were 
the rush and roar of the Thames to that of the 
keeper of London Bridge. In those days night found 
the city wrapped in sleep ; now from dark to dawn 
the beat of its great throbbing heart never ceases. 

The measures taken for lighting the streets at 
night were of an intermittent character. The pro- 
vision made during the winter season, on the nights 
when the economical lunar light was not available, 
was as follows : Every seventh house was required 
to cause a lantern to be hung out on a pole every 
night in the dark time of the moon from November 
until the 25th March, the charge to be paid in equal 
proportions by the seven houses, under the penalty 
of ninepence for every default. During the remain- 
der of the year probably the entire population, with 
the exception of a few roystering blades, was snugly 
tucked away in bed by nightfall. 

The organization of a Fire Department, with 
twenty-four members, dates from the year 1731.* 

*0n the 6th of May, 1731, the city authorities passed the fol- 
lowing ordinance : " Resolved, with all convenient speed to pro- 
cure two complete fire engines with suctions and materials thereto 

55 



The Bradford {Map 

Hooks and ladders were provided, and two engines 
were brought from London, but we do not read of the 
importation of any of the fire-extinguishers known in 
the British metropolis as "hand-squirts." Leathern 
buckets were the only appliances the city had pre- 
viously possessed for the extinguishing of fires ; these 
buckets were numbered and distributed by the au- 
thorities, and the law required every householder to 
be supplied with them and to keep them hanging in 
a conspicuous and convenient place. A dwelling- 
house with two chimneys had one fire-bucket ; a 
house with more than two chimneys, two buckets. 
Brewers were compelled to provide six buckets, and 
bakers three. The mayor and aldermen took charge 
at fires, and every person over twenty-one years of 
age was compelled to do fire duty, under a penalty 
for refusal of one pound. After a fire the buckets 
were left in an indiscriminate heap, and the urchins 
of the town turned many a penny by sorting them 
out and leturning each to its rightful owner. 

Property-values at this period in the history of the 
city were certainly not upon an inflated basis. In 
1726 a house on the west side of Broadway, with a 
lot 70 feet front and 50 feet deep, was sold to Fred- 
belonging — for the public service. That the sizes thereof be of 
the 4th and 6th sizes of Mr. Newsham's fire engines * * * to 
send to London by the first conveniency." These engines arrived 
about December 6th by the "good ship Beaver." Six years later 
fire engines were built and sold in New York. 

S6 




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o 


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< 


f- 




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<- 


Qi 




H 


ca 


t/l 






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The "Bradford [Map 

erick Philipse for about $i loo, and in 1729 a lot on 
Maiden Lane, near Pearl Street, 25 feet front, depth 
not given, brought about $700. Threepence per 
foot was paid for land on the west side of Broad- 
way near the Battery. A house on Wall Street, 
lot 61x102 feet, sold for about $2500. In the 
"Swamp," known as Bestevaar's Kripple-bush, or 
the Old Man's Swamp, for which in 1732 Jacobus 
Roosevelt obtained a quit-claim grant from the city 
for the sum of ;^300,* or $750, lots 25 x 100 sold 
for ;^io per lot. In 1727 four lots on George Street, 
now Spruce, and two lots on Gold Street, part of 
the Beekman pasture, were sold for %22^. In 17 13 
this swamp was regarded as a source of malaria, and 
an attempt was made to drain it. 

On May 6, 1732, a great sale of seven lots of 
ground on Dock Street, near the Custom House, and 
east of Whitehall Street, took place. They were sold 
for the following sums, and to the persons named : 

Lot No. I to Stephen De Lancey, . . . . ^^155 

2 " " ♦' .... 151 

3 " David Clarkson, 155 

4 " John Moore, 275 

5 ** Stephen De Lancey, .... 192 

6 " Robt. Livingston, son of Philip, 175 

7 " Anthony Rutgers, .... 239 

shillings sterling was the equivalent of ^6 shillings in 

New York provincial currency. 
8 57 



The Bradford O^ap 

By which it appears, says the chronicler of this 
transaction, that real estate had increased in value 
immensely since 1686, when lots in that quarter of 
the city sold for £^^. 

The revenues and expenditures of the municipal 
government were upon a most moderate scale. For 
the year 1727 the receipts are stated to havf been 
£,2']\, and the expenditures £2j\. In 1740 the 
receipts had risen to but £,']^']- They were derived 
principally from the rent of docks and ferries, licenses 
to retailers of spirituous liquors, leases of common 
lands, and rents of water-lots. In 1722 a ferry to 
Long Island from Burger's Path (Old Slip) was rented 
for £']i per annum. 

The majority of the population of the inchoate city 
was engaged in business pursuits as merchants, 
shopkeepers, and tradesmen, ''who maintained as a 
general rule the reputation of honest, punctual, and 
fair dealers." Their places of business were either 
in the same building as their dwellings or in close 
proximity. The most prosperous merchants — and 
they included the most prominent citizens — lived in 
the rear of their shops or over them. The English 
tradesmen are said to have been the first to adopt the 
practice of keeping their stores open in the evening. 

Among the articles kept in stock behind the one 
solitary counter in these modest little shops were 
many that would perplex and put to confusion a sales- 
man if inquired for to-day in one of our mammoth dry- 



The "Bradford (Map 

goods houses. Black padusoy, shagreen, striped sars- 
nets, silk camblet, cherry derry, blue tabby, black 
figured everlasting, French double alamode, Persian, 
and grogram. India dimity, and hoop petticoats of 
six rows, might not prove so utterly unintelligible. 

There was in the community the necessary sprink- 
ling of professional men, ministers, doctors, law- 
yers, and government officials; but it supported no 
leisure class, and the tramp had not as yet been 
evolved. These two extremes of society remained to 
be developed by a higher civilization. 

Industry, frugality, and simplicity were the social 
virtues which adorned New York in 1 73 i . Aside 
from the number of bond-servants who thronged 
their masters' gates, there was little of ostentation or 
lavish display in the style of living even of the ''high 
families," but there was much of the observance' of 
an old-fashioned courtesy in the ceremonious inter- 
change of the civilities of life. To the gatherings of 
fashion the rich and picturesque costume of both 
sexes lent an air of stateliness and dignity which has 
vanished with the dress. 

The most distinguished position, in point of social 
importance, was held by the Dutch families. The 
Hollanders had lost their political supremacy, but 
their social prominence remained, and they were by 
no means disposed to yield it to the higher and even 
more refined and better educated class of English who 
had become residents of the city. More than one 



The 'Bradford {Map 

half the inhabitants were Dutch or of Dutch descent. 
In the Collegiate Church this language was still in ex- 
clusive use in the pulpit, and as late as the year 1745 
a knowledge of the Dutch tongue was a necessity in 
visiting the markets. 

The principal Dutch festivals were Christmas, New 
Year's, Paas, Pinxter (Whitsuntide, the great tfiegro 
holiday), San Claas (St. Nicholas or Christ-kinkle day, 
the 6th of December), Shrovetide, and May Day. 
As secular holidays only two remain, Christmas and 
New Year's Day, and the latter has lost all its old- 
time significance. The fashion of making New 
Year's calls yielded slowly to the difficulties in the 
way of its observance which the growth of the city 
interposed. New York clung to this genial custom, 
and relinquished it with regret, and it is only within 
the last twenty years that it has become altogether 
honored in the breach instead of the observance. 

The holidays observed by the English were neither 
few nor far between. New Year's Day, King's or 
Queen's Birthday, King Charles's Martyrdom, Shrove 
Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Lady Day (the 25th of 
March, the old style beginning of the year, when leases 
were made and rents became due). Good Friday, Easter 
Monday and Tuesday, Ascension Day, St. George's 
Day, King Charles's Restoration, Prince of Wales's 
Birthday, Coronation Day, All Saints' Day, Gunpow- 
der Plot, Christmas Day, and the Christmas holidays, 
December 26th to 28th — all these were officially 



The "Bradford OV[ap 

recognized by the closing of the Courts and Custom 
House; and there must be added several provincial 
holidays, General Fast, 



New-York ASSEMBLY, 1759. 
A< Mr. Edward Wi: 



Thanksgiving, and Gen 

eral Election Day. Quite 

enough, in all conscience! h This ticket admits..i&^^«<. 

The city was by no \ Forthcseafon 

means destitute of I b^ntar. , 

sources of amusement for 



both sexes; the men had their weekly evening clubs, 
and for the entertainment of the ladies there were 
concerts and assemblies. A pathetic protest against 
the overwhelming attractions of these gatherings 
appeared in the Gazette of December 31, 1 733 : 

''Written at a Concert of Music, where there were 
a great number of ladies. 

" Music has power to melt the soul, 
By beauty nature's swayed ; 
Each can the universe control, 
Without the other's aid. 

•' But here together both appear. 
And force united try ; 
Music enchants the list'ning ear. 
And beauty charms the eye. 

" What cruelty these powers to join ! 
These transports who can bear? 
Oh ! let the sound be less divine. 
Oh ! look, ye nymphs, less fair." 



The 'Bradford Map 

The character of the entertainment afforded at 
these "consorts" is set forth in an advertisement 
of the musical purveyor of the day, which we copy 
from the same journal : 

"On Wednesday, the 21 of January Instant there 
will be a Consort of Musick, Vocal and Instrumental, 
for the Benefit of Mr. Pachelbell, the Harpsiconid Part 
performed by himself. The Songs, Violins and Ger- 
man Flutes by private hands. The Consort will be- 
gin precisely at 6 a'clock. In the house of Robert 
Todd, Vintner. Tickets to be had at the Coffee- 
House, and at Mr. Todd's, at 4 shillings." 

William Smith, Chief Justice of the Province of 
Canada, and the author of a history of New York in 
1757, affords us a pleasing glimpse of the ladies of 
his day, the daughters of the dames whose praises are 
sung by the unknown poet in Bradford's Gazette. 
It reveals the fact that they inherited the graces of 
person as well as the other attractive qualities of 
their fascinating mothers. He is not, however, al- 
together complimentary in his criticism. He admits 
that they were "comely and dressed well, and, tinc- 
tured with a Dutch education, managed their families 
with becoming parsimony, good providence, and sin- 
gular neatness"; but he charges them, as well as the 
men, with a general neglect of reading, and indeed of 
all the arts for the improvement of the mind. Yet 
opportunities for mental culture had not been lack- 
ing. Free schools existed, and a public library had 



The "Bradford OAap 

been established in 1729, its nucleus being a collec- 
tion of 1642 volumes bequeathed by the Rev. Dr. 
Millington, of Newington, England, to the Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 
and by it presented to the city. The Rev. John 
Sharpe, Chaplain to Her Majesty's Forts and Forces 
in the Province of New York, so early as 17 13 pro- 
posed to donate a collection of books belonging to 
him to the city as a foundation for a public library, 
but there is no evidence that he ever carried out 
this benevolent intention. 

The New York Society Library, the oldest circulat- 
ing library now in existence, was organized in 17S4, 
and chartered by Governor Tryon in 1772, at which 
time it contained 1278 volumes. 

An advertisement in the New York Gazette of 
September 7, 1730, is interesting in this connection, 
and also as showing the intimate relations existing 
between James Lyne, the surveyor, and William Brad- 
ford, the printer, of the Bradford Map. Mr. Lyne noti- 
fies the public that he has fitted up a convenient room 
at the Custom House, where he designs teaching in 
the evenings during the winter " Arithmetick, in 
all its parts. Geometry, Trigonometry, Navigation, 
Surveying, Guaging, Algebra and sundry other parts 
of Mathematical Learning," and adds, "Whoever 
inclines to be instructed in any of the said parts of 
Mathematical Knowledge may agree with the said 
James Lyne at the house of William Bradford." 



Tbe Bradford {Mjp 

It is quite evident that these early settlers brought 
with them from the mother-country a decided taste 
for good living and a fondness for the comforts of 
life, and that they strove to cultivate as many of its 
amenities as it was possible to introduce into a new 
country. We are indebted to Chief Justice Smith 
for the following facts and opinions concerning 
his townspeople: "The people, both in town and 
country, are sober, industrious, and hospitable, 
though intent upon gain. The richer sort keep very 
plentiful tables abounding with great variety of 
fish, flesh, and all kinds of vegetables. The com- 
mon drinks are beer, weak [sic] punch, and Madeira 
wine. For dessert we have fruits' in vast plenty 
of different kinds and various species. . . , With 
respect to riches there is not so great an Inequality 
amongst us as is common in Boston and some other 
places. Ever\^ man of Industry and Integrity has it 
in his power to live well, and many are the in- 
stances of Persons who came here, distressed by 
their Poverty, who now enjoy easy and plentiful 
Fortunes." 

The prevailing fashion in men's dress is illustrated 
by the inventory of the wardrobe of the English gov- 
ernor. His Excellency John Montgomerie, to whom 
the Map is dedicated. It embraces ruffled shirts, 
dimity vests, silk stockings with embroidered clocks. 
a scarlet cloak, a cloak and breeches with gold lace, a 
laced hat, a cloth suit with open silver lace, a gold- 



The Bradford OAap 



headed cane, bobtail wig, periwig, and so on. Truly 
he must have presented an imposing appearance 
when arrayed for cere- 
monious occasions. The 
gala dress of the private 
citizen was also showy 
and expensive, and the 
use of the small sword 
as an appendage to a gen- 
tleman's street costume 
was still common. A 
beau's ball costume is 
thus rhythmically de- 
scribed by a belle of 1725 




A FINE LONG QUEUE. 



" Mine, a tall youth shall at a ball be seen, 
Whose legs are like the spring, all cloth'd in green, 
A yellow ribband ties his long cravat, 
And a large knot of yellow cocks his hat." 



The governor occupied the house within the Fort, 
and maintained considerable state in his style of liv- 
ing. Servants in livery thronged the Fort, and negro 
musicians enlivened the evening with their strains 
from the battlements. 

A list of His Excellency's household effects em- 
braces a large amount of table silver, and his cellar 
contained an extensive stock of wines and liquors. 
In his stable were a fine saddle-stallion, two coach- 



The "Bradford O^ap 

horses, a number of working- and breeding-horses, a 
four-wheel chaise and harness, a coach with five sets 
of harness, carts, saddles, and no end of equine para- 
phernalia and trappings. After the governor's death 
in July, 1731 , his effects were sold at public vendue. 
On October 11, 1 73 1 , appeared the following adver- 
tisement of this sale in the New York Gazette. His 
" large fine barge with damask curtains" had been 
previously disposed of at auction. 

** To Morrow being the twelfth day of this Instant, 
at two o'clock in the afternoon, at the Fort, will be 
exposed to sale by publick Vendue the following 
Goods, belonging to the Estate of his late deceased 
Excellency Governour Montgomerie, viz. : 

"A fine new yallow Camblet Bed, lined with Silk 
& laced, which came from London with Capt Down- 
ing, with the Bedding. One fine Field Bedstead and 
Curtains, some blew cloth lately come from Lon- 
don, for Liveries ; and some white Drap Cloth, with 
proper triming. Some Broad Gold Lace. A very 
fine Medicine Chest with great variety of valuable 
Medicines. A parcel of Sweet Meat & Jelly Glasses. 
A case with 12 Knives and twelve Forks with Silver 
Handles guilded. Some good Barbados Rum. A con- 
siderable Quantity of Cytorn Water. A Flask with 
fine Jesseme Oyl. . . . And several other Things. 
All to be seen at the Fort. 

"And also at the same Time and Place there will 



The "Bradford (Map 



be Sold, One Gold Watch, of Mr. Tompkin's make, 
and one Silver Watch. Two Demi-Peak Saddles, one 
with blew Cloth Laced with Gold, and the other Plain 
Furniture. Two Hunting Saddles. One Pair of fine 
Pistols. A fine Fuzee 
mounted with Silver, and 
one long Fowling Piece." 

Governor Montgomerie 
also brought from Eng- 
land his private library, 
which was the largest in 
the province prior to the 
Revolution, numbering 
1341 volumes, mostly of 
a standard character. 

In the list of articles of 
feminine apparel the most 
noticeable item is that of petticoats. We are informed 
that Madame Philipse, a daughter of the famous old 
Burgomaster Van Cortlandt, and the widow of Fred- 
erick Philipse, one of the wealthiest men of the day, 
who was known as the ''Dutch millionaire," pos- 
sessed her red cloth petticoat, her black silk ditto, her 
red silver-lined petticoat, and her silk quilted petti- 
coat. Her most notable article of Sunday outdoor 
ostentation was a splendid psalm-book with gold 
clasps which hung by a gold chain from her arm. 
The colonial dames of 1 73 1 could go up in perfect 




MY lady's head-dress. 



The "Bradford Map 

peace and quietness to the sanctuary on the Lord's 
day, for the orderly observance of the Sabbath was 
strictly enforced. Sunday liquor traffic was prohib- 
ited under a penalty often shillings for each off'ense, 
and the law ordained that no servile work but mat- 
ters of necessity should be performed. Children 
were not permitted to play in the streets ; they were 
perhaps expected to pass the interval between morn- 
ing and evening service in conning their Scripture 
lesson from the old blue-and-white Dutch tiles, deco- 
rated with biblical subjects, with which most of the 
wide-mouthed chimney-places of that day were lined. 
We are not surprised that a lady's wardrobe in- 
cluded a bountiful supply of comfortable undergar- 
ments when we read that in 1731 the churches 
were unprovided with stoves, and that the doors 
were left open during service, while the snow in win- 
ter drifted up the aisles. Foot-warmers and skirts 
innumerable would scarcely suffice to keep one's 
teeth from chattering during the protracted service 
then in vogue. The sermon was sure to be of an 
hour's duration. It was the duty of the clerk, whose 
seat was immediately in front of the high pulpit, to 
have an hour-glass standing near, and to properly 
turn it at the beginning of the sermon ; when the 
last grain of sand had left the upper cavity, he would 
rap three times with his cane to remind the domine 
that an hour had elapsed. On one occasion a preacher 
temporarily supplying the pulpit of the "Old South" 



The Bradford (Map 



quietly let two glasses run through, and then informed 
his hearers that as they had been patient in sitting 
through two hours he would proceed on a third. The 
collections were taken up in a velvet bag suspended 
from a pole. If the silver tinkle of the bell at the bot- 
tom of the bag was not sufficient to arouse an un- 
usually sleepy member of the congregation, a gentle 
rap on the head was likely to follow. 

The ministers in charge of the Collegiate Church at 
this time were Domine Dubois and the Rev. Henricus 
Boel. The former held the pastorate for over fifty 
years, and the latter for forty years. 

The year 1731 is memorable in the history of the 
city for the outbreak of a severe epidemic of small- 
pox, which began in the month of August and was 
not suppressed until the succeeding summer. The 
interments in the several burying-places up to the end 
of the year not only show the great mortality, but 
also in a measure indicate the strength of the dif- 
ferent religious denominations in the city.* 



*Church of England 
Dutch Church 
French 
Lutheran . 
Presbyterian 
Quakers 
Baptist 
Jewish 
Negro burial-ground 

Total . 



237 

218 

16 

I 

16 

2 

I 

2 

80 

573 



The "Bradford {Map 




FRAUNCES TAVERN, I 893. 



70 



The "Bradford {Map 

Having become somewhat familiar with the streets 
of this half Dutch, half English town of our fore- 
fathers, let us now turn our attention to the Survey 
itself, thankful that there is even this one chartographic 
record remaining of a city the original architecture of 
which has been, with a single exception, completely 
changed. Of the 1500 houses it embraced, the well- 
known Fraunces Tavern (and it has been remodeled), 
built in 1 70 1 on the southeast corner of Pearl and 
Broad streets, remains as the only link between the 
present city and that of William Bradford's Map. 




SECTION OF THE IRON RAILING ON THE BALCONY OF THE 
FEDERAL EDIFICE IN WALL STREET. 



IVe backvjard look to scenes no longer there. 




^'^SBifv- 




^^?^^*^->^,^^ 



w^mp 



A SOUTHWEST VIEW OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK IN 
NORTH AMERICA, I 776. 



CHAPTER 



THE PRINCIPAL LANDMARKS OF THE CITY IN 1 73 1 



Ti 



HE Bradford Map bears this inscription : "A Plan 
of the City of New York from an actual Survey Made 
by lames Lyne." There is no date, but this is at 
once approximately determined by the inscription to 
Lieutenant-Governor Montgomerie, who held office 
for but three years, 1728 to 1731. The map must 
therefore have been published during this interval. 
But there is conclusive evidence in the survey 
itself which enables us to fix the date with more 
precision. The city is divided into seven wards — 



The Bradford {Map 

Outward, North, South, East, West, Dock, and Mont- 
gomerie. The last-named ward was added at the 
time of the granting of the Montgomerie Charter 
in 1 73 1. It is highly probable that the addition of 
this new ward was the immediate occasion for the 
issue of the map, and it undoubtedly made its ap- 
pearance in that year. ♦ 

The map is printed on a thin laid paper, with a 
water-mark of which but little more than a fleur-de-lis 
can be positively deciphered. The engraving is light 
and delicate in execution, qualities which are entirely 
lost in all reproductions made of it. 

Of facsimiles there have been a number. Prob- 
ably the first was a lithograph made in 1834 by 
George Hayward from the original in possession of 
G. B. Smith, street commissioner. A copy of this 
lithograph was made by order of the corporation to 
accompany a report of the Committee on Docks in 
1836. To both of these the date 1728 was errone- 
ously affixed. 

Valentine's Manual for 1842-43 contained a copy 
of the map, as did also his History of New York 
published in 18S3. Another reproduction was pub- 
lished by F. B. Patterson in 1874, and one (a colored 
lithograph by Joseph Laing which bore no date) by 
John Slater, bookseller. Both of these have been 
used by various mercantile firms as advertising signs. 
There is at least one reprint in circulation in addition 
to those mentioned above without any date of issue 

74 



The Bradford (Map 

or name of publisher upon it. All these maps are 
without doubt copies of the first reproduction from 
the original made in 1834, and two of them are 
apparently reimpressions from the first lithographic 
stone. All repeat the spurious date of 1728, and 
are guilty of the same omissions, notably of a num- 
ber of the boats, and the words " Ledge of Rocks." 

The interesting question is, What has become of 
the original map in possession of Street Commissioner 
Smith? It has never been traced, and it is therefore 
a gratuitous assumption on the part of the author of 
this book that it is the identical copy which subse- 
quently fell into his possession; still, if this be not 
the case, it is passing strange that its whereabouts 
should not have been unearthed during thirty years. 

The Bradford Map on a small scale appears in the 
left-hand corner of a copperplate map of the city 
issued in 1825 by David Longworth, and, similarly 
reduced and engraved on copper, was printed in 
Dunlap's History of New York in 1839. Other re- 
productions have appeared in various publications 
relating to the early history of the city. 

In the left-hand upper corner of the Bradford Map 
is this inscription : "To His Excellency Iohn Mont- 
GOMERIE Esq. Cap' Gen' & Gov'' in Chief of his Majef- 
ti's Provinces of New York, New Iersey, &c. This 
Plan of the City of New York is humbly DediC* by 
Your Excellency^ obe' & most humble serv' W" Brad- 
ford." These words are surmounted by the gov- 



The 'Bradford {Map 

ernor's arms and motto, and underneath is a tablet 
containing a key to the localities indicated. The 
tablet is supported by emblematical figures supposed 
to represent Peace and War. In the opposite corner 
are engraved the arms of the city and the name of 
"Col' Rob' Lurting, Mayor," 

William Bradford, who printed the map, 2»nd by 
whose name it is best known, removed his printing- 
press from Philadelphia to New York in 1693, at the 
invitation of Governor Fletcher. For some time he 
was in government employ, and his press was prin- 
cipally occupied with government documents. The 
first book printed in New York at his press was a 
small quarto of 226 pages, George Keith's Truth 
Advanced, published in the same year (1694) that 
the Laws of the Province was issued. 

In October, 1725, Bradford began the publication 
of the first newspaper printed in New York, the 
New York Gazette. It was a half sheet of foolscap 
paper filled with European news, custom-house en- 
tries, advertisements, rewards offered for the return 
of runaway slaves, and notices of slaves for sale by 
public vendue. With the beginning of 1727 (old 
style) he increased it in size to a whole sheet of 
foolscap, or four pages. Bradford also printed the 
first New York almanac, which was issued in 1694, 
and he was the father of copperplate engraving and 
of book-binding in the colony. At the foot of the 
outside page of his journal he inserts this notice 

76 




Namb. 304. 



THE 



%^yj'New-York Gazette? 



From ^aj»/?i6. to Monday ^»°«// sj. nji. 




Cmtiim^t'or. ef ll>i Exirad from iht Tilt til S'l't 
vhich Trai ktgu>7 ia our Gat.rtte, K" Ip^. cmMniKg 
Oiferviticm en the Bills of M^.in'.ity. 

far the Month of February, I73<»,i • 

MR /,;/?f// having coniinimicated 10 ilie Royal 
Sociery die ullls of Mortality or tliisCny 
for the Yeiir? 16P7, 88, 89, so, 9i, in 
which the Aj;cs ai;d ?ex''S of ali thi.t h^'t 
difd for that tiiiie were fct doivn monthly, aid 
'cDinparcd wirh the Births, Mr. H.'!lty to' 1; theCc 
for hisStanJ.ird, a;id iiom thence has inadc iiuiiy 
■ curious Cakniationj. 

From thefe liilli it appeared, thnt in the five Years 
aboveticntior.ed rhcre wereb'>in in tliat City 619} 
i'e.lbns and bsiricd 5859, which at a 'vlcdinm i- per 
Anmm^ born ijj8, and buried 1174 vvhcnccan 
Inereafe of the reoplemay b,; hipnclJ ot 64 ter 
MuMm. which isabaota twenric:h j-urt ot chofe 
that ,irchorn, and mav hcfiiv-'OlUI to be ballaic-d 
by thofc that po from that Town 10 liie tmpcrors 
Armin, or into other Countrif'S i.l fearcli of a 
Livelili):)d. From the fame Bills it appeared, that 
348 dial ycariy in the fir'> Year of tlieir Ape, and 
that tog died in the fv/c Y'.ir? between one 
and fix corpleat taken at a Medium, fo that from 
Mr A/ja,v'i Calculation wc may c"npi'tc that 5fS 
of thfir C'lillrcn died kfo'C thiir As;e of ten, 
W'hich is not ->n; half of the Ch iJicn b -vn yearly 
in that Cit / ; from whence wc m ly obfervc the (jreat 
DifFcrenrc that there is, between the hcalilfiilneft 
ot the Children of that Ci:y and the Children thit 
»re born at Laaion.oi which by Computation above 
four !i>h; die before they arrive at (he Arc of ten. 
Mr. Hj't^ obfer»es that from the Ape of fixcom- 
plest, ChilJren arrive at a greater Degree of 
StrenR'.h and Firtnnep;, and <:ro'.v Icfs and 1 Is mortal-, 
»nd from' the Bills ot Mort ilitv at Brt{la;o he h^s 
formed a Tabic of the Number of pcrlbns of every 
Age from fevcn to a hundred inclaiivc, ihac die in a 
Year. 

From Mr. H*ie\'> Tabic it apncars evident that 
from the Age 0' Nine to about Twenty Five there 
dots not die above Six fc .irrniii ot each interme- 
diate Age at a Medium, which is about OnenfrCrnf. 
of the whole People of that Town of thofe Ages, 
which Proportion he lavs was confirmed by the In. 
formation he had from Chrift:'s-C»»'ch H ij'ltJl., the 
Boys of which are peneriilv at the Ag<s tTom Eif'.ht 
Or Nine to Fifteen or S:xteen ;and it was obferved 
that about One in a Hundred of cuch Age died 
yearly, from the Agesof Twtnty Five to Fiity, 



he fays, there fccm to have died at Bi-rfiw frrrn 
Seven to Elf ht or Ninc(wi-y<,,» of each in'irnccliate 
Year's Ak--, and after that to Seventy, they fefmed 
to gr.ow more cr.iT.y ; tho' the Number of PcrH n» 
of thelc A^es alive mi;rt be much diminilhcd, yet 
the Morralify increal'cJ, fo that there are found' to 
die I'enor^lcven per Ammtn of each intermediate 
Year's .\gc-, fnm wh<'nce the Number of the l.iv- 
iv.; rieini; ^rown very fmall, the Bills gradually de- 
cline, ti:l ihcro be none Icit to die. 

Fiom thcfc CorfiHcratior.! he forincd a T.ib'e,' 
which ^ives a morcjiiH Idea of the State and Con- 
di:iorsof M^^nkind, than any thin^ hill er to, for 
what I know, n-adt Piblick. It cnI ibitsthe Kiim- 
bcr of PeopI; in the Ci'.y of BreJI.-T of all Ages, fi«ni 
simoit tni I inb to rxfre.imold Age, and thereby 
Ihews the Chances of Morality of all .Ages, and like- 
wife how to o'akc an Eftimatcof the V.;lucof A.i- 
nuitios for I ivrs, ascertain as any Culculation th.iC 
depend* upon Piob.-ibilirie.; or Chances cnn po' b!y 
be nude •, alio what Chanecs there arc that a Pcr- 
fon of any \ne propof..! fha'il live to any other Age 
given, and f.-rvesfor m.iry other I'urpofes, which 
he points forth in bis laid mod in^jcnious and ufeful 
i)!;r£rtion' 

From this Table it :!ppcirs that the Peop!cof 
SreflmM coulidof i^o:a Human ioiils, being the 
Sum Total of the P>rf nsof ill Ages in the 1 abi». 
The firft Ufc of this Table is then to ftiew the 
Proportion of Men able to bear Arms in 3ny i\lul. 
titudc, vrhichare the Men between Eighteen and 
Fifty Six, rather than Sixteen and sixty, for he rea- 
fonably concludes, that Men under Eighteen arc 
generally too weak to best the Fatigues of War, and 
the Weight ot Arm% and thofe above Fitty Six are 
gcrerallv too cia7.y, and infirm, notwitiilUnding 
particular Inftanccs lothe contrary. Under Eigh- 
teen are found trom this Table in the City cf Bref!.ia 
I 9j;7 Ptrfons, and 3950 a' ove Fifty Six, which to- 
perher make 1591?, which being dcdiif^cd out of 
=4000, there remains 18013, one half of v»hich 
mull be fuppofed to be F«m<iles and the other Males, 
and therefore we mud conclude that there where ia 
the City of flrtl!jn> about gfoj Men fit to bear Arms, 
which is a Third and Seven Ninth Part of 340CO 
and it we confider that in every Multitude there 
are fcveral Men who are of a propfr Ape, but be-' 
eaiife of I'ome natural infirmity are not fit for Service, 
we may then lay thisdown as a general Problcin, 
that in every Multitudcof Penplr, of all Ages and 
Sexes, there are at len.'t one FJi'ith that are fir to 
bear Arms-, Ftomwl-.ith, if we kaow the Numbej 



From the Original in the New York Historical Society Library. 



t. 



The "Bradford OViap 

to his patrons, "Where you may have old books new 
bound."* He died in 1752, at the advanced age of 
eighty-nine years ; the date of his birth being settled 
beyond dispute by a note in the table of his almanac 
for May, 1739 — " The Printer born May 20, 1663." 
"He was almost a stranger to illness all his life, and 
on the morning of the day of his death is said to have 
walked over a greater part of the city." As an old 
writer quaintly puts it, Quite worn out with old age 
and labor, his lamp of life went out for want of oil. 
He was buried in Trinity churchyard, and his tomb- 
stone, removed thence to the rooms of the New 
York Historical Society, now stands in the entrance- 
hall of that building. In the inscription upon it, pre- 
pared by his apprentice James Parker, the date of his 
birth is given as having occurred in 1660, and his age 
is erroneously stated to have been ninety-two years. 
The first edifice to which attention is directed on 
this map is the King's Chapel in the Fort— the old 
church of St. Nicholas, built in 1642 by the Dutch 
under William Kieft's administration. It was used 
by them as a place of worship until their removal 
to their new church in Garden Street in 1693, when 
it was relinquished to the British government and oc- 
cupied by the royal military forces as a chapel until 
its destruction by fire in 1741. It was not rebuilt. 

* The site of the house where William Bradford issued the first 
newspaper in the city has been identified by the New York His- 
torical Society as that of the New York Cotton Exchange building. 



The "Bradford {Map 




It was constructed of stone, and covered with oaken 
shingles called wooden slate, as they in time became 
blue in color, which gave them at a distance the ap- 
pearance of slate. The dimensions were 72 feet long, 
52 feet broad, and 16 feet high, and the cost was 

$1040. The fol- 
lowing stor)^, illus- 
trating the fact that 
human nature is 
much the same in 
all ages, is told in 
connection with its 
erection. The gov- 
ernor had promis- 
ed to furnish some 
of the Company's 
money, and the remainder was to be raised by private 
subscription. A few days afterward the daughter of 
Domine Bogardus (the second* pastor of the church) 
was married, and at the wedding party the governor 
and Captain De Vries, thinking it a rare opportunity to 
raise the requisite amount of funds, took advantage of 
the good humor of the guests and passed round the 
paper with their own names heading the list. As each 
one present desired to appear well in the eyes of his 
neighbor, a handsome sum was contributed. In the 

* The first minister of tiie Collegiate Church of New York was 
Domine Jonas Michaelius, a fellow-student in the University of 
Leyden of the celebrated Dutch poet Jakob Cats. 

78 



I HI uO\ hKNOR S HOUSE AND THE CHLIRCH 
IN THE FORT AT NEW AMSTERDAM. 




/ J;, /.-,-.•• ,// 






'/ 



From the New York Magazine, 1795. 



The "Bradford (Map 

morning some few appealed to the governor for per- 
mission to reconsider the matter, but His Excellency 
would permit no names to be erased from the paper. 
Governor Kieft and Domine Bogardus both lost their 
lives by shipwreck in 1647. Asthey were returning to 
Holland in the ship Princess, the vessel struck upon 
a rock on the coast of Wales, and only twenty pas- 
sengers out of eighty were saved. 

In the Fort, next to the King's Chapel, stood 
the governor's house, a two-story peaked-roof build- 
ing, with two long, narrow dormer windows in the 
roof and an exterior chimney on each gable. It was 
occupied by the royal governors down to the period 
of its destruction by the fire of December 29, 1773, 
in which Governor William Tryon, the last resident, 
lost all his personal effects. 

The next building indicated on the Bradford Map is 
Trinity Church on Broadway, at the head of Wall 
Street, where the third edifice of that name now 
stands overlooking one of the greatest money centers 
on the globe, while the music of its chiming bells 
mingles daily with the babel of the eager, hurrying 
multitude that beats and surges around the quiet 
graveyard lying in its shadow. 

The first church was built on this spot in 1696, and 
stood virtually on the banks of the Hudson, the en- 
trance facing the river as that of St. Paul's does now. 
The cemetery was inclosed on the Broadway side by 
a painted paled fence. This was the city burial- 



The "Bradford [Map 

place,* and was granted in 1702 to the rector, ward- 
ens, and vestry of Trinity Church to be appropriated 
for a public burial-place forever, "they to keep the 
same in good fence and repair, and taking only for 
breaking of the ground for - every person above 
twelve years of age 3s. 6d. and for each child under 
twelve years is. 6d., and no other or greater duty 
whatsoever for the breaking of said ground." 

The first building was twice enlarged, once in 
1735, and again two years later. It was destroyed 
by fire in 1776, and rebuilt in 1788. It was finally 
taken down and the present edifice begun in 1839 
and completed in 1846. Church of England services 
were first regularly held in the chapel in the Fort in 
1664, after the surrender of the colony to the British 
by Governor Stuyvesant. The Rev. William Vesey, 
from whom Vesey Street takes its name, was the 
first rector of Trinity parish. 

Following our guide we come next to the Old 
Dutch Church in Garden Street, or Garden Alley, as 
it was called when the church was surrounded by a 
garden, "imposed in all the formal stiffness of cut 
box and trimmed cedar presenting tops nodding to 
tops, and each alley like its brother, the whole so 
like Holland itself." The site when first selected was 
objected to as being so far out of town. The church 

*The first burial-plot in the city was on the west side of 
Broadway, near Morris Street, comprising 4 lots 25x100 feet 
each. This was broken up in 1676. 



The "Bradford Map 




TRINITY CHURCH, SECOND EDIFICE. 

was Opened for divine service in 1693, before it was 
entirely finisiied. "It was an oblong square with 
three sides of an octagon on the east side, in the 
front it had a brick steeple, on a large square founda- 



The "Bradford {Map 



tion so as to admit a room above the entry for a con- 
sistory room. The windows were remarkable for their 
size, and the leaden sashes for the smallness of their 

panes. Many of 
these contained 
coats -of-arms of 
the eldejrs and 
magistrates 'cu- 
riously burnt in 
glass' by Gerar- 
dus Duyckinck." 
The inner rear 
wall was also dec- 
orated with es- 
cutcheons. Ger- 
ardus Duyckinck 
appears to have 
been a glass- 
stainer and to 
have kept the art 
emporium of the 
period. He ad- 
vertises his busi- 
ness as a limner 
and picture-deal- 
er in the New York Gazette in this wise: "Look- 
ing glasses new silvered . . . Also all sorts of pic- 
tures made and sold. All manner of painting work 
done ... All sorts of painting coullers and oyl sold 




THE "old south" CHURCH IN GARDEN 
STREET, BUILT I 693. 



The Bradford (Map 



at reasonable rates ... at the sign of the Two 
Cupids near the Old Slip Market. N. B. Where you 
may have ready money for old looking glasses." 

The Garden Street Church, or " Old South," con- 
tinued the only house of worship of the Reformed 
Dutch Church until the 
erection of the one at 
the corner of Nassau 
and Liberty streets. In 
1766 it was thorough- 
ly repaired, and in 
1807 it was taken 
down and a new edi- 
fice erected on the 
same spot. The new 
building was used un- 
til it was destroyed in 
the great fire of 1835. 
In 1813 the "Old South" separated from the Col- 
legiate Church, and became a distinct congregation 
in charge of the Rev. Dr. Matthews. 

The Dutch language was in use in the pulpit of the 
Garden Street Church certainly as late as 1764. In 
March of that year Domine De Ronde, who with 
Domine Ritzema was in pastoral charge of the two 
Collegiate churches, preached a sermon at the instal- 
lation of Dr. Archibald Laidlie, the first Collegiate* 

* "The Collegiate Church of New York is so called because it is 
a group of congregations in one organization." 

S3 




THE GARDEN STREET CHURCH, 
SECOND EDIFICE. 



The "Bradford CMap 

minister who officiated in the English language. 
Domine De Ronde's text was taken from Isaiah 

XXX. 20, '^Wsst oogm sfuUen iitwe iLecracrsf sftm" 

("Thine eyes shall see thy teachers"). 

The French church Le Temple du Saint Esprit, on 
the northeast side of King Street (now Pine) was 
founded in 1 704. The building was 50 x 77 ftJet, and 
stood upon a lot of ground 70 feet front and 157 
feet deep, running through to Little Queen Street. 
The space not occupied by the church was used as a 
graveyard. This edifice remained standing one hun- 
dred and thirty years, and was taken down in 1834. 

The establishment of a church by the devoted 
little company of Walloons who were driven into 
Holland by the terrors of the St. Bartholomew Mas- 
sacre and emigrated to this country with the Dutch, 
is almost coeval with the settlement of the colony. 
The first Huguenot church was erected in 1688. 
It was a small, plain building in Marketfield Street, 
then called Petticoat Lane, near the Battery. The site 
is now covered by the Produce Exchange building. 

George Jansen Rapelye, whose daughter Sarah was 
long reputed to have been the first female white child* 

*''The first birth of a child of European parentage in New 
Netherland was probably that of Jean Vigne, whose parents came 
from Valenciennes, France. He is believed to have been born 
in 1614, eleven years before Sarah de Rapelye, and at the very 
earliest period compatible with the sojourn of any Hollanders 
upon our territory. If this statement is correct, Jean Vigne is not 

84 



The "Bradford (Map 



born in New Amsterdam, was one of these Walloon 
emigrants. Many of them settled at New Rochelle, 
where a church building was erected as early as 1692. 

In the Burgis picture of the Middle Dutch Church, 
the French edifice is seen in the background. The 
tower is surmounted by a cupola and weathercock al- 
most identical in form with that of the Dutch Church. 
The small print 
here introduced 
gives a view of 
the building be- 
fore this cupola 
was added. 

The New Dutch 
Church, 70x100 
feet in size, on 
the corner of Nas- 




LE TEMPLE DU SAINT ESPRIT. 



sau and Liberty 

(then called Crown) streets, was completed in 1731, 
but had been opened for religious worship in 1729. 
The location was at this time "quite on the verge 
of the more compact part of the city." 

When this building was taken down in 1882 it 
was the most venerable church edifice in the city, and 
had had a checkered history. British troops had 
turned it into a riding-school for cavalry, but the 
desecrated temple was restored after the Revolution 

only the first born of European parents in New Netherland, but, 
as far as known, in the whole United States north of Virginia." 

85 



The "Bradford O^ap 

and again devoted to religious purposes. It was re- 
opened for public worship on the 4th of July, 1790. 
The sermon on this occasion was delivered by the 
Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston. 

There were no galleries in the church when it was 
first built, and the ceiling was one entire arch without 
pillars. The pulpit, covered with an enormous can- 
opy or sounding-board, stood against the east wall, 
while the entrance was by two doors in front on the 
Nassau Street side. In 1764 the pulpit was moved 
to the north end, and the pews and entrances altered. 

The bell, which was cast in Amsterdam, was pre- 
sented by Abraham De Peyster, who died in 1728 
while the church was in process of erection. A 
number of Amsterdam citizens are said to have 
thrown silver coins into the preparation of the bell- 
metal. This "trophy of antiquity" now hangs in the 
tower of the Reformed Dutch Church at the corner 
of Forty-eighth Street and Fifth Avenue. 

The last religious service in the New Dutch Church 
was held on the evening of August 11, 1844. Dr. 
John Knox delivered the sermon, and the building 
after an occupancy of one hundred and fifteen years 
was finally closed with the apostolic benediction pro- 
nounced in the Dutch language by the Rev. Dr. 
Thomas De Witt. 

The ground upon which the church was built ori- 
ginally cost ;^575. In i860 the property was pur- 
chased by the authorities at Washington for the sum 



The 'Bradford OAap 

of $200,000 for use as a post-office.* The church trus- 
tees, however, received for the property $2=^0,000, 
the amount above the $200,000 appropriated by 
Congress being contributed mostly by members of 
the New York Chamber of Commerce. In 1882 the 






% 




THE MIDDLE DUTCH cHLK^.! 



USED AS THE POST-OFFICE. 



government disposed of the property at pubhc auc- 
tion, and it was secured by the Mutual Life Insurance 
Co. of New York for a sum that was at the time con- 
sidered far below its value, $650,000. 

The print of the Middle Dutch Church by William 
Burgis, of which a reproduction is given, was prob- 
ably executed shortly after the completion of the 

*They had previously leased it for the same purpose. 

87 



The "Bradford (Map 



building. It is inscribed, as lias been already stated, 
"to the Honourable Rip Van Dam. Esq', President of 
His Majesty's Council for the Province of New York." 

This worthy of 
the olden time oc- 
cupied a distin- 
guished political 
position in the pro- 
vince, being for 
many years presi- 
dent of the coun- 
cil, and for a short 
time (the interreg- 
num between the 
administrations of 
Montgomerie and 
Cosby) the act- 
ing governor. Al- 
though in point of 
wealth not rank- 
ing with the most 
prosperous merchants, he was considered to pos- 
sess a comfortable fortune. The value of his property 
probably did not exceed $25,000. In 1732 he pe- 
titioned for and was given a small gore of land at the 
present intersection of Liberty Street and Maiden 
Lane, 103 feet in length, for the nominal sum of 10 
shillings, as being of little or no value to any one else 
but him. With property in the city of New York 




THE PRESBYTERIAN MEETING HOUSE 
IN WALL STREET. 




pRiMiJt: 



'Jo //ic jlWioi/nM 

RIP \ V\ DAM.K w 

vio/i/n. l'/r.!ii'.>h,fn,.'//or//,,mo)i.\a:.i .\/r\\ \ 



Jin. 

DfJ 



From the Original Engraving in the Collection of W. L. Andrews. 



The "Bradford Map 

thus going a-begging, one could be " passing ricii on 
£^0 a year." Rip Van Dam died in 1749, aged near 
ninety years. His wife was Sarah Vanderspeigel, one 
of the two daughters of Laurens Vanderspeigel, a 
baker, who by long and devoted attention to his 
business had accumulated a ''handsome" property. 

The Presbyterian Meeting House, on the north side 
of Wall Street, near Broadway, was erected in 1719. 
The ground had been purchased some time pre- 
viously from Abraham De Peyster and Samuel Bayard 
for about $875. This edifice suffered the common 
fate of all the church buildings in the city during 
the Revolution, and was turned into a barracks for 
British troops. It was enlarged in 1748 and again in 
1 8 10, and was destroyed by fire in 1834, but im- 
mediately rebuilt. Jonathan Edwards occupied the 
pulpit of this church for a short period in 1721. 

The other church buildings shown upon the Brad- 
ford Map are the Quaker Meeting House, a small 
frame building in Little Green Street (a lane running 
from Maiden Lane to Liberty Street), built about 
1703 ; the Baptist Church on Golden Hill, erected in 
1724; the Lutheran Church, a modest stone building 
built in 1 702 on the corner of Rector Street and Broad- 
way, afterward the site of the first Grace Church ; 
and the Jewish Synagogue in Mill Street, completed 
in 1730. 

The first building occupied as a City Hall stood at 
the head of the present Coenties Slip, on the corner 



The Bradford (Map 

of Pearl Street, and was originally the City Tavern, 
built by the government in 1642 and granted to the 
city as a Stadthuys in 1653. It was sold in 1699 for 
;^920 to John Rodman, merchant. The construction 




THE STADTHUYS IN COENTIES SLIP. 
First City Hall of New York. 



of a new City Hall was immediately begun, and it was 
completed in 1700 at a cost of ^i i^i i8s. 3d. At 
the time of its erection the line of Wall Street upon 
which it stood was all vacant ground, and was not 
built upon for many years subsequently. The build- 
ing was of stone, some of which is said to have been 
taken out of the bastions which stood upon the line 
of fortifications in Wall Street. It had a roof of cop- 
per, and was surmounted by a cupola. The com- 
mon jail and dungeon was for a time located in the 

90 



The "Bradford (Map 

basement and subcellar of this building, and the 
debtors' prison in the open garret, which was neither 
ceiled nor plastered. After the Revolution the ex- 
terior was remodeled and the interior refitted under 
the supervision of Major L'Enfant, the well-known 
French military engineer, with the expectation of 




THE OLD CITY HALL IN WALL STREET. 
From Grhn's Drawing. 

making it the permanent residence of the Federal 
Legislature, and it was named the Federal Edifice. 
The building, as altered at this time, was fully de- 
scribed in the Columbian Magazine for 1789. The 
basement story was styled Tuscan, and was pierced 
with seven openings. Four massive pillars in the 
center supported four Doric columns and a pedi- 



The Bradford {Map 

ment. The frieze was divided so as to admit thir- 
teen stars in the metopes. These, with the American 
eagle and other insignia in the pediments, and the 
tablets over the windows filled with thirteen arrows 
and the olive-branch united, marked it as a building 
set apart for national purposes. The representatives' 
room was octagonal in form, 6i feet deep an(^36 feet 




THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE, I 795- 
From the New York Magazine. 



high, with a domed ceiling. It was finished in light- 
blue damask. The senate-chamber had an arched 
ceiling, and was 40 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 20 
feet high, furnished in crimson damask. This room 
opened into a gallery in front of the building which 
was 12 feet deep, and was guarded by a handsome 
iron railing. In this gallery Washington took the oath 




''„■<■■ >■/ V>. r i: nr. ii.vi. r. iuik f. "> m« >>«hk. 
From the Massachusetts Magazine, 1789. 



The "Bradford CMap 




THE CITY HALL IN THE PARK. 



of office as first President of the United States in the 
presence of a large concourse of people who assem- 
bled in front of the building. A statue of Wash- 
ington on the steps of the Sub-Treasury marks the 
spot where this 
historical inci- 
dent occurred. 
Among other 
preparations at 
this time made 
in the expecta- 
tion that New 
York would be 
fixed upon as the capital city of the country, was 
the erection of the Government House on the site 
of Fort George, opposite the Bowling Green, in- 
tended as the official residence of the President of the 
United States. It was the finest mansion in New 
York at the close of the last century — a stately edi- 
fice of red brick with Ionic columns. Before it was 
completed the seat of government was removed to 
Philadelphia, and the building was then appropriated 
to the use of the governors of the State. Later it 
became the Custom-House, and in the year 1815 
was removed. The Bowling Green block of old- 
fashioned brick houses now stands on its site, and in 
the whirligig of time the scene will shortly shift 
again and a new custom-house will probably occupy 
the same ground as its predecessor. 



The "Bradford OVlap 

The foundation-stone of the present City Hall was 
laid at its southeast corner on May 26, 1803, during 
the mayoralty of Edward Livingston, and the build- 
ing was finished in 18 12 at a cost of half a million 
dollars, exclusive of the furniture. The architect was 




BROADWAY AND FULTON STREET. 

The Citv Hall in the Distance. 



John McComb, a native of New York. The dimen- 
sions are 216 feet in length by 105 feet in breadth. 
The front and both ends were finished in white marble 
brought from West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but 
the rear in brown freestone. The use of this cheaper 
material on the up-town side has given rise to the 
facetious statement that the builders considered it a 
favorable opportunity to save expense upon a part of 
the edifice that would rarely fall under observation. 



The Bradford (Map 

When completed this building was justly consid- 
ered the finest structure in the United States. It 
was long the show-place of the city, open to visi- 
tors every week-day, except Monday, after 3 p. m., 
with a person in attendance to exhibit the building 
for a small douceur. It still remains, after the lapse 
of nearly a century, the most chaste and pleasing ex- 
ample of municipal architecture in the city, infinitely 
superior, from an artistic standpoint, if from no other, 
to the edifice which stands behind it, and which has 
cost the taxpayers twenty-four times as much. 

The remaining buildings which James Lyne indi- 
cates on his map are the Custom-House in Dock 
Street, the Weigh-House, Bayard's Sugar-House, the 
Exchange in Broad Street, two Free Schools (one 
Dutch and one English), and four Market-places — the 
Fish, Old Slip, Meat, and Fly markets. These are 
of no particular historical importance, and require no 
special reference. 




THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 
95 



A different /ace of things each age appears, 
A nd all things alter in a course of years. 









NEW YORK FROM GOVERNOR'S ISLAND, I 83 I . 



CHAPTER IV 



CONCLUSION 



Vv E shall bring to a close this effort to retrace 
the lines and repeople the city of New York as it was 
at the time when James Lyne measured and mapped 
out its streets, with an extract from the oft-quoted 
diary of a Swedish traveler, Professor Peter Kalm, who 
visited the country in 1748, seventeen years subse- 
quent to the date of the survey. In the interval 
the population had not greatly increased, and the 
general appearance of the city had undergone no 
marked change. . 

13 97 



The "Bnidford 04ap 

"The streets," he informs us, "do not run so 
straight as those of Philadelphia, and have some- 
times considerable bendings ; however, they are very 
spacious and well built, and most of them are paved, 
excepting in high places where it has been found use- 
less. In the chief streets there are trees planted which, 
in summer, give them a tine appearance, an4 during 
the excessive heat at that time afford a cooling shade. I 
found it extremely pleasant to walk in the town, for 
it seemed quite like a garden. The trees which are 
planted for this purpose are chiefly of two kinds. 
The water-beech is the most numerous, and gives an 
agreeable shade in summer by its large and numerous 
leaves. The locust-tree is likewise frequent ; its fine 
leaves and the odoriferous scent which exhales from 
its flowers make it very proper for being planted in 
the streets near the houses and in gardens. There 
are likewise lime-trees and elms in these walks, but 
they are not by far so frequent as the others. . . . 
Besides numbers of birds of all kinds which make 
these trees their abode, there are likewise a kind of 
frogs which frequent them in great numbers during 
the summer ; thev are very clamorous in the even- 
ing and in the nights (especially when the days have 
been hot. and a rain is expected), and in a manner 
drown the singing of the birds. 

' ' Most of the houses are built of brick and are gen- 
erally strong and neat, and several stories high. 
Some have, according to the old architecture, turned 



The Bradford €Vlap 

the gable-ends toward the street, but the new houses 
are altered in this respect. Many of the houses have 
a balcony on the roof on which the people sit in the 
evenings in the summer-time, and from thence they 
have a pleasant view of a great part of the town, and 
likewise of part of the adjacent water, and of the 
opposite shore. 

"The roofs are commonly covered with shingles 
or tile, the former of which are made of the white fir- 
tree which grows higher up in the country. . . . 
The walls of the houses are white- washed within, 
and I do not anywhere see hangings, with which the 
people in this country seem in general to be little 
acquainted. The walls are quite covered with all 
sorts of drawings and pictures in small frames. On 
each side of the chimneys they usually have a sort of 
alcove, and the wall under the window is wains- 
coated, with benches under the window. The 
alcoves as well as all of the woodwork are painted 
with a bluish-gray color. . . . The winter is much 
more severe here than in Philadelphia. The snow 
lies for some months together on the ground, and 
sledges are made use of. The river Hudson is about 
a mile and a half wide at this point, and the ice stands 
in it not only one but for even several months. It 
has sometimes a thickness of more than two feet. 

"The inhabitants are sometimes greatly troubled 
with mosquitoes. They either follow the hay, which 
is made in the low meadows near the town, which 



The 'Bradford (Map 

are quite penetrated with salt water, or they accom- 
pany the cattle when brought home at evening. . . . 

"The watermelons which are cultivated near the 
town, grow very large. They are extremely deli- 
cious, and are better than in other parts of America, 
though they are planted in the open fields and never 
in a hotbed. I saw a watermelon at Governor Clin- 
ton's which weighed 47 English pounds, and another 
at a merchant's in town 42 pounds weight; how- 
ever, they were reckoned the largest ever seen in the 
country. Oysters are plenty and of fine quality." 

Our keen-eyed visitor appears to have been, in the 
main, very favorably impressed with the island of 
Manhattan, and would doubtless have readily in- 
dorsed the verdict rendered by Hendrick Hudson a 
century previous that it was '*a very good land to 
live in and a pleasant land to see." In one respect 
the city he described in 1748 has certainly not im- 
proved as it has grown greater and more populous. 
The cool and attractive summer residence he depicts, 
and upon which fact he lays such stress, is a dream 
of the past. Forests of telegraph-poles, with electric 
wires for leaves and branches, have taken the place 
of the rows of pleasant shade-trees, and the invigorat- 
ing breezes of the bay can no longer, in the dog-days, 
find their way through streets whose buildings 
shut out both air and sunlight. The song-birds, too, 
have flitted away, leaving the quarrelsome little Eng- 
lish sparrow in undisputed possession of the town. 




FATHER KNICKERBOCKER. 
101 



The Bradford Map 

More than fifty years ago this pessimistic view of 
the future of the ancient Knickerbocker city was pre- 
sented by the editor of the New York Mirror (G. 
P. Morris) in the columns of his journal: "The city 
of the Knickerbockers is fast disappearing from the 
world of realities, and their homes are following 
them to the vast shadow of oblivion. Tikd roofs 
and high peaked gable-ends have already under- 
gone the fate of the cocked hats, the eel-skin queues, 
and the multitudinous small clothes that once gave 
assurance of a race of Knickerbockers in this venera- 
ble city; all are gone, and in a few short years there 
will be none to remember that such things were! 
St. Nicholas has abandoned his once favorite me- 
tropolis, and how should it be otherwise since 
there is not a Dutch chimney-corner left for him to 
nestle in?" 

Happily we have not yet lived to see the com- 
plete fulfilment of this dismal prophecy. 

"That blissful and never to be forgotten age, 
When everything was better than it has been e'er 
since," 

has undeniably passed out of sight, but not entirely 
out of mind ; it is still to memory dear. The Belgic 
New Amsterdam of the seventeenth century has be- 
come the cosmopolitan New York of the nineteenth ; 
nevertheless, we maintain that it is Diedrich Knicker- 



The "Bradford Map 

bocker's city still, and that its patron saint is none 
other than the good St. Nicholas. 

The birth of the approaching century will witness 
the complete transformation of the 22,000 acres in- 
cluded in Peter Minuit's purchase two and a half cen- 
turies ago from a wilderness of woods and streams 
to one of bricks and mortar, with a population ex- 
ceeded in numbers by that of but two other cities on 
the foce of the earth — a marvelous outgrowth from 
the little cluster of thatched roofs and wooden chim- 
neys which nestled for protection under the walls of 
the Fort at the Battery, and over which floated the 
flag of " Oranje boven," the tricolor of Holland. 

All honor to those of every clime and nationality 
whose brain and sinew have contributed to this re- 
sult, but, above all, honor to the pioneers, the men 
who led the way, the sturdy, stout-hearted Dutch- 
men who, in founding the colony of New Nether- 
land, builded far better than they knew and laid the 
substructure of a city fairer and greater than in their 
wildest flights of fancy it could have entered into 
their minds to conceive. 

The Dutch discoverers of New Netherland were, 
said Chancellor Kent in an address before the New 
York Historical Society in 1828, grave, temperate, 
firm, persevering men, who brought with them the 
industry, the economy, the simplicity, the integrity, 
and the bravery of their Belgic sires, and with these 
virtues they also imported the lights of the Roman 



The Bradford {Map 

civil law and the purity of the Protestant faith. To 
that period we are to look with chastened awe and 
respect for the beginnings of our city and the works 
of our primitive fathers. 

31emanu Dc cere geeben 
tJie Ijem toeUomt* . 



Finis. 




FLAG OF THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY. 



^(A 



CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL 
HISTORICAL EVENTS REFERRED TO IN THIS BOOK. 

1609 The North River discovered and explored by Hendrick 

Hudson. 
1614 A trading post established at Fort Nassau on Castle Island, 
near Albany. 
Birth of the first child of European parentage in New 
Netherland. 
1626 Purchase of the Island of Manhattan by the Dutch West 

India Company. 
1633 The first church erected on the Island. 
1642 The first church on the Island abandoned to business pur- 
poses. 
The Church of St. Nicholas built in the Fort. 
The City Tavern built by the Government. 
1647 Ex-Governor Kieft and Domine Bogardus shipwrecked. 

1651 View of " t' Fort nieuw Amfterdam op de Manhatans" 

published at Amsterdam. 

1652 The city incorporated under the name of New Amsterdam. 

1653 The City Tavern given to the municipality for a Stadthuys. 
Organization of a city magistracy. 

1656 The city surveyed and a map of it made. 

Adriaen vander Donck's view of "Nieuw Amsterdam" 

published. 
1658 A road laid out from the Collect Pond to Harlem. 
1660 Incorrect date of William Bradford's birth engraved on his 

tombstone. 

1663 Birth of William Bradford. 

1664 Surrender of the colony to the English by Governor Stuy- 

vesant. 
1676 The first city burial-place broken up into lots. 

14 105 



Chronological Index 

1686 The first coach in New York brought by Colonel William 

Smith, 
The Park ceded to the Corporation of the City of New York 

by Governor Dongan. 
1688 The first Huguenot church built. 
1691 Acting Lieutenant-Governor Jacob Leisler executed. 

1693 The Garden Street Church built. 

William Bradford's press removed from Philadelphia to 
New York. 

1694 The first almanac and the first book printed in New York 

by William Bradford. 
The Laws of the Province first printed. 
1696 The first Trinity Church erected. 
The first hackney coach advertised. 

1699 The Stadthuys sold to John Rodman, merchant. 

1700 The City Hall in Wall Street built. 

1 70 1 Fraunces Tavern built on the corner of Pearl and Broad 

streets. 

1702 The Lutheran Church built. 

1703 The Quaker Meeting House built. 

1704 Le Temple du St. Esprit built. 

1705 The "King's Farm" property granted by Lord Cornbury 

to the corporation of Trinity Church. 
1707 Broadway paved with stone from Trinity Church to 

Maiden Lane. 
1719 The Presbyterian Meeting House or Church in Wall Street 

erected. 
1 72 1 Jonathan Edwards the minister for a short time of the 

Presbyterian Church in Wall Street. 

1724 The first Baptist Church built. 

1725 The first newspaper issued in New York. 

1728 Date erroneously ascribed to the Bradford Map. 
Death of Abraham de Peyster. 

1729 Gift of books to the city for a public library. 
New or Middle Dutch Church opened for worship. 

106 



Chronological Index 

1730 The first Jewish Synagogue built. 

1 73 1 Probable date of the Bradford Map. 
Contemporaneous date of the View of Castle William and 

of the Middle Dutch Church print. 
The Montgomerie Charter granted. (The Charter is dated 

January 15, 1730, but as the old style of reckoning then 

in use began the year in March, the correct date according 

to existing usage is 1731.) 
Death of Governor John Montgomerie, and sale of his effects. 
A Fire Department organized by city ordinance. 
The New or Middle Dutch Church completed. 
A smallpox epidemic in the city. 
A census taken of the city and county. 

1732 Sale of lots in Dock Street, showing value of real estate at 

this period. 

1733 Bowling Green laid out by city ordinance. 

1734 A law passed for the preservation of fish in the Collect Pond. 

1735 Trinity Church enlarged. 

1739 Date of the Almanac in which mention is made of William 
Bradford's birth. See table for May. 

1741 Discovery of an alleged Negro Plot, and execution by 

hanging or burning of many of the accused. 
The King's Chapel in the Fort destroyed by fire. 

1742 A map of the city drawn by David Grim. 
Brick-kilns in operation on the Commons. 

1745 A knowledge of the Dutch language still necessary in visit- 
ing markets. 

1748 The Presbyterian Church in Wall Street enlarged. 

1749 Death of Rip Van Dam. 

1750 The first coach-builder established in New York. 
1752 Death of William Bradford. 

1754 The New York Society Library founded. 

1755 A map of the city published by Gerardus Duyckinck. 
1757 A History of New York published by Chief Justice Smith. 
1764 The English language first used in Collegiate Churches. 



Chronological Index 

\']66 The Garden Street Church extensively repaired. 

1772 The New York Society Library chartered. 

1773 The Governor's House in the Fort destroyed by fire. 
1776 The Great Fire. Trinity Church burned. 

1788 Trinity Church rebuilt. 

1789 Washington inaugurated on the balcony of the Federal 

Edifice in Wall Street. 

1790 The Middle Dutch Church reopened for public worship 

after the Revolution. ' 

1794 Many changes made in names of streets. 
1803 The foundation-stone of the City Hall in the Park laid. 
1805 The Collect Pond filled in. 
1807 The second church edifice in Garden Street built. 

A copy of the Bradford Map presented to the New York 

Historical Society by John Pintard. 
1 8 10 The Presbyterian Church in Wall Street again enlarged. 

1812 The City Hall in the Park completed. 

1813 The Garden Street Church becomes an independent con- 

gregation. 
181 3 The Government House removed. 

1834 Probable date of first facsimile of the Bradford Map. 

The Presbyterian Church in Wall Street destroyed by fire. 
The French Church in Pine Street taken down. 

1835 The second Great Fire. The Garden Street Church burned. 

1839 The second Trinity Church taken down, and the present 

edifice begun. 
1844 The last religious service held in the Middle Dutch Church. 

1840 The third Trinity Church completed. 

i8bo The Middle Dutch Church purchased by the United States 
Government for use as a post-ofifice. The General Post- 
oflfice had been located in this building since its removal, 
in 184^, from the Rotunda in the City Hall Park. 

1^82 The Middle Dutch Church sold by the Government to the 
New York Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the 
building demolished. 

108 



From the American Almanack for 1738. 
Compiled by Titan Leeds, printed by William Bradford. 



A Defer iption of the 


High ways and. Roads 


From Philadelphia to New-York, 98 Miles 


Thus Accounted 


T~prom Philadelphia, M. 
Jl To Burlington, 20 


To Cranberry Brook, 12 


To Amboy, 20 


To Dr. Browns, 9 


To the Narrows, 18 


To Crofwick's Bridge 5 


To Flat-Bufli, 5 


To Allen's Town, 4 


To New York, 5 


From New-York to 


Bofton, 27Q Miles 


Thus Accounted 


TT>rom New-York M. 
J7 To Half-way-houfe 7 


To Gilford, 12 


To Killingfworth, 10 


To Kings-Bridge 8 


To Seabrook * 10 


To Eaft-Chefter, 5 


To New-London, 18 


To New-Rochel, 4 


To Stoneington, 15 


To Rye, 4 


To Pemberton, 10 


To Horfe-neck, 7 


To Darby, 3 


To Stanford, 7 


To the French Town, 24 


To Norwalk, 10 


To Providence, 20 


To Fairfield, 12 


To Woodcocks, 15 


Stratford, 8 


To Billends, 10 


To Millford, 4 


To Whites, 7 


To New-Haven, 10 


To Dedham, 6 


To Branford, 01 


To Bofton, 10 


From Philadelphia to 


Annapolis in Maryland, 


Thus A 


[^counted 


"rrvrom Philadelphia M 
17 to Derby, 7 


To North Eaft, 7 


To the Iron- Works, 6 


To Chefter, 9 


To Sufquahanna Ferry, 3 


To Namans Creek, 5 


To Gunpowder Ferry 25 


To Brandy Wine Ferry, 9 


To Tatapfco Ferry, 20 


ToCrifteena Feryr, 1 


To City of Annapolis, 30 


To NewCaftle 5 


In all 144 Miles, 


To Elk River, 17 


*Pofts change the Males 



INDEX. 



Albany, 22, 38. 
Almanac, Bradford's, 76. 
Amusements, 61. 
Architecture, Dutch, 47 ; Eng- 
lish, 47. 

Baptist Church, 89. 

Bayard (Samuel) Sugar-House, 

95- 
Book, the first printed in New 

York, 76. 
Bogardus, Domine, 78. 
Boel, Rev. Henricus, 69. 
Boston, 38. 

Bowling Green, 37, 38. 
Bradford, William, 19, 63, 77. 
Bradford Map, 19, 20, 27, 73 ; 

Copies of, 74. 
Bridge Street, 34. 
Broad Street, 34. 
Broadway, 28, 35. 
British troops, 8s. 
Burial-plot, the first, 80. 
Burgis, William, 20, 87. 
Burger's Path, 31 . 

Castle William, Boston Har- 
bor, 21. 
Cats, Jakob, 78. 



Cedar Street, 31 . 

Census of 1731, 28. 

City, cleaning, 53 ; lighting, 
55 ; revenues and expenses, 
58 ; watchmen, 54. 

City Hall, Wall Street, 90 ; in 
the Park, 93. 

Clap, John, 42. 

Cliff Street, 32. 

Coaches, private, 41 ; hack- 
ney, 42 ; stage, 39, 40. 

Columbian Magazine, 91. 

Collect Pond (Fresh Water), 
4', 43> 45; 52; outlet of, 
44; fish in, 44. 

Collegiate Church, 69, 83. 

Commerce of New York in 
1731, 48, 51. 

Concerts, 61 , 62. 

Congress of the Federal Legis- 
lature, 91. 

Cro' Nest, 49. 

Custom-House, 93. 

De Lancey, Etienne, 46. 
De Peyster, Abraham, 86. 
De Ronde, Domine, 83. 
De Vries, Captain, 78. 
De Witt, Dr., 86. 



Index 



Docks, 48. 

Dongan (Gov.) House, 34. 

" Down East," 49. 

Dress, 6s, 67. 

Dubois, Doiniue, 69. 

Dutch festivals, 60. 

Dutch Church, duty of clerk, 

08; lengthof scrinon in, 69; 

language, 60. 
Dutch West liulia Co., 23. 
Dutch weiglit, 2s. 
Duyckiiick, Ccrardus, 21, 82; 

liis map of 17SS, 21 . 

F.dwarils, Jonathan, 89. 
Fnglish lioliilays, Oo. 
Exchange Place, 31. 
Exchange in Broad Street, 95. 



Golden Hill, 32, 42. 
Government House, 93. 
Governor's House in the Fort, 
78. 

Hallett, James, coach-builder, 

41. 
Harlem River, 41 . 
Harpending, John, 31. 
Hell Gate, 40. 
Holland, m. 

Hudson, Hendrick, 22, 24. 
Hudson River, 20, 48, 49. 
Hudson River sloops, 30. 
Huguenots, 84 

Indians, 21, si. 

Irving, Washington, 2s, 45. 



Federal lulitice, 91 . 
Fire Department organized, SS- 
Fire-engines fust imported, ss. 
First church on Manliattau is- 
land, 3 I . 
Fifth Avenue, 28. 
Fletcher, Governor, 76. 
Fort George, 40. 
Fort Nassau near Albany, 22. 
Fort Nieuw Amsterdam, 20. 
Fraunces Tavern, 71 . 
Fulton Street, 32. 
Fur trade, 2s. 

Garden Street Church, 46, 77, 
80. 



Jews' Synagogue, 89. 

Kalm, Professor, 07. 
Kent, Chancellor, loi. 
Kieft, Governor, 77, 79. 
Kingsbridge Road, 38, 41. 
King's Chapel in the Fort, 

77- 
King's l-'arm, 20. 
Kissing Bridges, 44. 
Knickerbocker, loi. 
Knox, Dr. John, 86. 

Laidlie, Dr., 83. 
Leisler, Jacob, 37. 
L'Enfant, Major, 01. 



index 



Liberty Street, 43. 
Library, first public, 62. 
Lispcnard's Meadows, 44. 
Livingston, Dr. John H., 86. 
Livingston, Edward, 94. 
London, 51 . 
Love Lane, 32. 

Lurting, CoL Robt., Mayor, 76. 
Lutheran Church, 89. 
Lyne, James, 19, 63, 97. 

McComb, John, 94. 

Maiden Lane, 32. 

Middle, or New, Dutch Church, 

20, 21, 46, 85. 
Manhattan, 24. 
Market-places, 93. 
Matthews, Dr., 83. 
Merchants of N. Y. in 1731, 58. 
Michaelius, Domine, 78. 
Miilington, Dr., 63. 
Minuit, Governor Peter, 23, 

24, 103. 
Montgomerie, Governor John, 

dress, etc., 64; sale of his 

effects, 66. 
Morris, Geo. P., 102. 
Mutual Life Insurance Co., 87. 

Nassau Street, 32, 43. 
Negro executions, 37, 53. 
Negro Plot, 37, 53. 
New Rochelle, 85. 
New York Chamber of Com- 
merce, 87. 

15 113 



New York Gazette, 51, 62, 76, 

82. 
New York Historical Society, 

X, 77- 
New York Mirror, 102. 

Oysters, 50. 

Old Wind-Mill Lane, 29. 

Park, the, 35, 39. 
Parker, James, 77. 
Pearl Street, 29, 30. 
Phil.idelphia, 28, 39, 98. 
Philipse, Frederick, 67. 
Philipse, Madame, 67. 
Pintard, John, 19. 
Port of New York, 48. 
Post-office, 87. 
Postal facilities, 38. 
Presbyterian Meeting House, 



Qiiaker Meeting House, 89. 

Rapelye, Sarah, 84. 

Real estate, values of, 56 ; 

sales of, 57. 
Religiousscrvices first held, 3 i . 
Reproductions of the Map, 74. 
Rip Van Dam, 42, 88. 
Ritzerna, Domine, 83. 

Sharpe, Rev. John, 63. 

Shops, 58. 

Slaves, laws relating to, 52. 



Index 



Smallpox, epidemic of, in 
1731, 69. 

Smith, G. B., Street Com- 
missioner, 74. 

Smith, William, Chief Justice, 
51, 62, 64. 

Smith, Colonel, Governor of 
Tangiers, 4 1 . 

Stadthuys, 90. 

St. Nicholas, 102. 

Schools, 62. 

St. Paul's Church, 79. 

Streets paved, 53. 

Sunday laws, 68. 

Tappan Zee, 49. 
Tea-drinking, 52. 
Tea-water pump, 44. 



Temple du St. Esprit, 46, 84. 

Tombs, the, 45. 

Trent, George, 20. 

Trinity Church, 20, 46, 79. 

Tryon, Governor, 63. 

Vesey, Rev. William, 80. 
Vigne, Jean, 84. 
Virginia, 50. 

Wall Street, 33. 
Wampum, 50. 
Wards of the city, 74. 
Washington, 92 ; Statue of, 

93- 

West Indies, 50. 
Whitehall Street, 34. 
William Street, 3 i . 




CORRECTIONS. 

Page 21, line 28. For "only copy" read "only perfect copy." 
An imperfect copy is in the possession of Trinity Churcii. 

Page 32, line 19. For " t'Maadge Paatge" read " t'Maagde 
Paatje." 



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